President Cyril Ramaphosa on Saturday condemned the South African Police Service’s “apartheid-style” approach to foreign nationals when asking them to produce their identity documents.
Ramaphosa, speaking to journalists before a presidential imbizo (meeting) in Bloemfontein, was asked about reports of police allegedly stopping foreign nationals and asking them to produce proof of their identity.
His comments came after protests and the murder in Soweto (Diepsloot township) on Wednesday of a 43-year-old Zimbabwean, Mbodazwe Elvis Nyathi, who was killed by a mob going door-to-door demanding to check residents’ passports and identity documents at night.
“As South Africans, including the police, we should always be respectful to people from other nations, and whatever challenges we have, we should use the law enforcement channels,” Ramaphosa said.
He added: “Obviously, we cannot accept behaviour like that, where people are hunted down. And they are asked questions about their own identity — because it takes us back to the apartheid way of doing things.”
“Of course, we deplore any action that is taken against anyone to a point where they are killed. We regret the loss of life of the Zimbabwean,” the president said.
“But I am also pleased that the police, together with the Minister (of Police Bheki Cele) have been on the ground and have been stabilising the situation. There are investigations now under way,” he said.
“We are now in a democracy, and we should be very restrained and respectful of the rights of other people in our country,” the president said.
“We continue to say that we should not take the law into our hands and we should not be targeting anyone in the way that people from other countries have been targeted because, whatever we say, it no sooner becomes something that becomes xenophobic.”
The Soweto township of Diepsloot has been restless in the past two weeks, recording seven murders, and 54 people arrested in violence instigated by members of Operation Duduza – a vigilant youth group which has become a law unto itself.
NM/as/APA