A copy of the report is avaiulable on the APCOF publication page
hide

An English and French version of the report is available on the APCOF publication page
hide

The revolution let them out, so let the people have a taste of their revolution," he said, according to two of the seven officers at the meeting, who spoke anonymously for fear of reprisals. For the next four months, residents in the southern Egyptian town say, they appealed repeatedly for help, but were rebuffed by a police force still bitter about its humiliation in the uprising that ended President Hosni Mubarak's rule. The gang went on to kill at least seven people, officials and residents believe. The Egyptian police force has long been hated for its corruption and use of torture, and many Egyptians saw the downfall of the police state as a critical goal of their 18-day uprising. But current and former officers say some members of the force are thwarting any attempt at change, and in many cases are avenging their fall from power by refusing to do their jobs. These alleged sanctions are blamed for a surge in crime. According to Interior Ministry figures, there were 36 armed robberies nationwide in January but the figure rose sharply to 420 in July; murders went from 44 to 166, kidnappings from three to 42. Midlevel officers have "an attitude that borders on mutiny," says Lt. Col. Mohammed Mahfouz, who left the force in late 2009 and now advocates reform. Their attitude, he told The Associated Press, is that "Egyptians must be taught a lesson before the police come back to the streets. They want people to suffer without effective policing so they realize the prestige of the state is a red line that must not be crossed again." As far back as the 1952 coup that put the military in power, the police force, now one million-strong, has been a sworn enemy of reform and its advocates. From street cops to agents of the daunting State Security Agency, policemen were untouchable and intimidation kept order on the streets. Talking back to a policeman could earn a slap on the head or worse. In 2006, in an incident that was filmed and posted on YouTube, a Cairo minibus driver who annoyed an officer was dragged to a station and sodomized with a wooden pole. Torture was a basic investigative tool. If a car was stolen, police would often round up suspects and beat them until someone confessed. Bribery was common. Rarely was a policeman investigated, much less prosecuted. And then there was the State Security Agency, an arm of the police that operated at the political level but was seen by the public as just another instrument of police oppression. The agency was involved in election-rigging to keep the ruling party's in power. It weighed in on the running of universities, trade unions, the media, and even had the final word on appointments of Cabinet ministers, governors and ambassadors. It also suppressed and spied on the opposition. After Kareem el-Behery, a 27-year-old blogger, helped organize a protest against corruption in April 2008, he was arrested, taken to a basement in a State Security compound and tortured through the night, he said. It was the casualness of the scene that stunned him, he said. He recalled how his tormenter listened to recordings of recitations from the Quran, Islam's holy book, even as he inflicted electric shocks, then took a prayer break. "How can you do this to me while listening to the Quran, and then just go and pray?" el-Behery says he asked the officer. "I'll go and give God what I owe him, then I'll come back and give you what you deserve," the officer replied. "You think I'm an infidel like you?" The anti-Mubarak uprising shattered the fear barrier. On Jan. 28, the deadliest day, tens of thousands of protesters withstood water cannons, tear gas and gunfire until overwhelmed police broke and ran. The next dramatic move came in March, when protesters stormed the main Cairo headquarters and several branch offices of the State Security Agency, aiming to stop the shredding and burning of secret documents. "It was sweet revenge for all those who have been tortured there over the years," said el-Behery, who was among the protesters. Since then, momentum has faltered. Interior Minister Mansour el-Issawi, who heads the police, dissolved the State Security Agency and replaced it with a new body called the National Security Authority, which he vowed would not be involved in politics. However, it has kept on nearly half the staff of the outgoing agency. Protesters have handed back most of the documents they seized lest they embarrass the victims of State Security's spying. There has been no public airing of the agency's abuses since. Prosecutors have put 140 police officers on trial for killing protesters during the uprising, and in July, el-Issawi sacked 700 senior officers from the various police branches, including the State Security Agency and the notorious Criminal Investigation Department, but most of them were near retirement anyway. Many State Security officers whom activists and victims have identified as being involved in torture have simply been transferred to other posts. El-Issawi says their experience is still needed. He acknowledges that some police were reluctant to shoulder their duties, but denies it's a conspiracy. He also says police are wary of acting to restore order, because some of those being prosecuted for using lethal force did so to fend off dangerous mobs. "People who were shot dead while trying to storm police stations are counted as 'martyrs' just like the protesters killed in cold blood," el-Issawi complained in a TV interview. One group, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, has put forward a detailed proposal for reform, starting with a widespread investigation of officers suspected of abuses. It calls for monitoring police stations for abuses and appointing a civilian as interior minister instead of a career police officer. It says police should get better salaries and crime-fighting technology to blunt the efficacy of bribes and beatings. So far, the group says, the ministry has shown no interest. "Many in the police force are filled with a desire for revenge," said the group's head, Hossam Bahgat. "They are convinced that for them to be an effective police force again, fear of the police must be reinstalled in society." Mahfouz, the former officer, keeps in touch with his colleagues on the force and says most police know no way other than intimidation. "They can only work in a climate that does not respect human rights." Lt. Col. Mohammed Abdel-Rahman, a serving officer who also heads a reformist group, says that even though Mubarak is ousted and on trial, senior officers have been helping pro-Mubarak businessmen hire thugs who attack pro-democracy demonstrators. The charge, in many variations, has been widely reported by the media and sometimes repeated by officials, but no investigation is known to have taken place. In Abu Teeg, a farming and trading town of 300,000 people some 400 kilometers (250 miles) south of Cairo, the five escaped criminals went on a rampage for months. They smuggled drugs and weapons, carried out robberies and settled old blood feuds. Brig. Mitwali Abdou, who headed Assiut Province's Criminal Investigations Division at the time, denies the charge that he told the seven district chiefs of his division at the Feb. 15 meeting in his office not to pursue the criminals. Speaking to the AP, Abdou praised the anti-Mubarak uprising, saying "the revolution is a glorious thing." One of the two officers who described the meeting, a major, said he opposed the order but did not speak up, since that would have meant "swimming against the current." "It is a decision that saddened me, a decision whose consequences we'll have to live with for years to come," the major told AP. Desperate residents went to police in Abu Teeg and the nearby provincial capital Assiut, but each time were told to just protect themselves, said a local resident, Younis Darweesh. Eventually, it was the army that took action, capturing two of the five criminals. Abdou has been moved to the post of general inspector in October 6 Province, near Cairo. Three of the seven district chiefs at the Feb. 15 meeting have been transferred to the central police headquarters in Assiut following repeated complaints from residents that they were using criminals and thugs to protect police stations. Abdel-Rahman, the officer and reformist, said the police force's "job has been to protect the (Mubarak) regime, not the people. ... Only a genuine purge of the force will bring reconciliation between the people and the police."
hide

One man has been killed and at least 15 others have been injured, according to Mauritanian rights groups, in southern Mauritania since September 24 during clashes between police and black opponents of the census. Raddho, which is based in Dakar, said in a statement that it was "very preoccupied by the clashes between Mauritanian security forces and black Mauritanian demonstrators of the 'Don't Touch My Nationality' movement". The dead man was shot and killed by police when they were breaking up a rally at Maghama in the south of the country on Tuesday, a security official who asked not to be named told AFP. The Don't Touch My Nationality movement claims that one aim of the census is to deprive black Mauritanians of their citizenship, while the Nouakchott government denies this and says the goal is to give the country a modern, accurate biometric census. Raddho said that "blind police violence... brings back bad memories of the regime of [Maaouiya] Ould Taya", the Mauritanian president overthrown in 2005 after 21 years in power, when he was accused of atrocities against the non-Arab populations of the country making up about 20% of the three million Mauritanians. The rights body "invites the Mauritanian government to give priority to inclusive dialogue, as it did" in the days following Ould Taya's rule to reconcile the country. Apart from Maghama and Kaedi in the south, demonstrations against the census have taken place in the capital Nouakchott and other towns by people who want the exercise stopped. The government has stated that it needs a new system of identifying citizens after promulgating a new Civil Code in 2010
hide

This was revealed by Police Deputy Minister Maggie Sotyu and Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) Executive Director Francois Beukman, who tabled the ICD’s Annual Report for 2010/11 on Thursday. According to the document, the 7% decrease was reported in six provinces, except for the Eastern Cape, Limpopo and Northern Cape, which had experienced increases ranging from 4% to 28%. Deaths in police custody amounted to 257 and deaths as a result of police action amounted to 540. During the period of review, the ICD had received 5 869 cases for investigation and of these, 797 were notifications of deaths in police custody as a result of police actions. A further 102 cases were on domestic violence non-compliance matters; 2 493 were on allegations of criminal offenses and 2 477 were on allegations of misconduct alleging contravention of police standing orders and regulations. Sotyu expressed concern about the 2 493 complaints alleging criminal conduct by members of the South African Police Service (SAPS). Of this number, 70% of these were related to police brutality, namely common assault, assault (grievous bodily harm) and attempted murder. Allegations of torture accounted for 4% of allegations of criminal offenses, whereas rape cases accounted for 2%. Sotyu said the challenges faced by the ICD will be addressed with the implementation of the new legislation for the ICD signed into law by President Jacob Zuma in May this year. With the new legislation, the ICD will be known as the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID). “The investigation as well as the reporting of both categories of offenses will become mandatory when the new legislation comes into effect,” she said. According to Beukman, the ICD had made 501 recommendations for prosecution to the Directorate of Public Prosecutions. Although the number of conviction was low, Beukman said it was encouraging that something positive was happening in convicting guilty police officers. Beukman explained that the ICD investigates allegations of criminal offenses against members of the SAPS by the public. “Some complaints were reported by other SAPS members. It is important to note that all complaints made against police officers can be substantiated,” Beukman said. The IPID Bill will give the new directorate powers to compel police to comply with its findings and this includes implementing recommendations. In terms of the IPID Bill, the IPID will be independent from the SAPS and report directly to the Minister of Police.
hide

Detention of activists and protesters and referring them to the military justice has been continuing, the last case being yesterday's decision of the military prosecution to extend the detention of 11 activists four days pending investigation, on the grounds of a demonstration before the Ministry of Defense. A 100 activists demonstrated near the Ministry of Defense following the return of a march, in which thousands of people participated, to Tahrir square last Friday. The march returned when the demonstrators found that the Military Police and the Central Security Forces had closed Abbasiya square, preventing them from reaching the headquarters of the Military Council. However, some protesters succeeded to reach the ministry by taking the Metro and getting off at Kobry Al-Kobba station, and intended to sit-in, but the military police chased them away
hide

In an interview with the Times yesterday, Mr Musonda said the reforms would help the police to expand and at the same time improve its operations, which in turn would benefit the general public. He said he was hopeful that President Sata would deliver on his promise to reform the Zambia Police Service, adding that reforms had been long overdue. Mr Musonda said the delay in implementing the reforms had contributed to failure by the police service to be transformed. Lack of transport at police stations was another issue that hampered the efforts of the police to effectively fight crime in the communities.It was frustrating for police officers to fail to rush to a crime scene or even be able to respond to emergency calls from the public because the service had no vehicles for its officers to use. President Sata said, when he announced the police reforms, that big police divisions would be headed by police commissioners, which would add to efficiency of the police instead of deputy police commissioners as was currently the case. Mr Musonda, who is currently working as a senior legal consultant for the National Institute of Public Administration (NIPA) in Lusaka, also called for motivation of police officers to be made a top priority in order to avoid making them vulnerable to corruption and enhance the fight against rising crime. “There is need to motivate the police officers such as giving them better perks, accommodation and other tools to prevent them from falling prey to the vice of corruption,” he said. He said crime, which was relatively high especially in Lusaka Province, needed the combined efforts of the police and the general public to be able to wipe it out. Mr Musonda said lack of transport at police stations was another issue that hampered the efforts of the police to effectively fight crime in the communities. He said it was frustrating for police officers to fail to rush to a crime scene or even be able to respond to emergency calls from the public because the service had no vehicles for its officers to use. Mr Musonda further called for intensive training programmes from the police top brass to the reserve police in order for them to update themselves on new policing methods and the law. He said experience alone was not enough but constant upgrading would help the service improve its services. Mr Musonda said that the nation would not develop if there was no investment in good security
hide

Top police leaders appeared before the Portfolio Committee on Police for annual report hearings for two consecutive days this week on Programme 1 Administration, and Programme 2 Visible Policing, where the police were commended by the chair of the Portfolio Committee on Police Cindy Chikunga on the work done in ensuring that the “people of South Africa are and feel safe.” The reduction in crime statistics “talks to the core business of fighting crime on which the SAPS is recording significant decrease thus making an impact towards making our communities safer,” the police said in a statement. Meanwhile the financial statements and performance thereof was presented in detail together with significant achievements of targets within Programme: Administration and Visible Policing. A number of questions were raised by members of the Portfolio Committee in relation to administration, management of funds, service delivery and accountability. SAPS management provided responses accordingly indicating interventions towards the achievement of targets, the statement added. The spending priorities were mainly directed to increased police personnel, skills development, increased stipend for new enlistments, enhanced technology, physical infrastructure, establishment of Tactical Response Teams and 2010 FIFA World Cup deployment for Programme Administration. Visible Policing spending priorities were mainly, crime prevention, borderline security, specialized interventions and world cup policing. The oversight committee however raised serious concerns on some of the expenditure patterns and irregular expenditure during financial year 2010/11 for Programme Administration. However, these financials did not necessarily interpret to any form of qualification as they only related to some of the internal measures and controls that need to be enhanced. In addressing this, the department is implementing new measures and remedial action in the current financial year already. Escapes in police custody, management of SAP13 stores, police station management and sector policing were some of the concerns raised by the oversight committee during the interactive session with the SAPS. Actual performance against targets was achieved significantly by the respective divisions within the SAPS as per the priorities detailed in the Strategic Plan 2010 - 2014 and Annual Performance Plan 2011/2011. But opposition Democratic Alliance party police shadow Dianne Kohler Barnard takes a less sanguine view. She says she will write to President Zuma to request that he commission the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to investigate tender procurement processes in the SAPS. “Figures revealed in a meeting of the Police Portfolio Committee this week indicate that irregular spending by the SAPS has increased from R2.5 million to R76 million over the last financial year,” she said. “This increase is indicative of serious financial mismanagement, and raises questions about the extent of corruption in tender procedures. The SAPS has become synonymous with the reckless use of state funds.” The Independent Group's newspapers, in their take, said Cele’s “judgment was questioned … as he was chastised by … [Chikunga] … for the poor state of police stations - which she insisted was directly related to the choice of managers and a lack of oversight by his department. Drawing from the committee’s experiences during oversight visits to police stations around the country, … Chikunga said if she were commissioner for a day, “all SAPS officers would be dismissed immediately. It makes you not able to sleep at night… Those getting promotions, national commissioner, where do you get these people from; these people you are promoting, where do you get them from?” she asked. In one instance, on a visit to the Pretoria Central police station, a stone’s throw from the SAPS headquarters, the committee found that 11 accused who were supposed to be in the holding cells could not be accounted for, despite the register’s having been checked and signed. At a police station in Gauteng, the committee found 3500 firearm licences lying in a box, despite the huge backlogs which frustrated the public. Officers at police stations often could not account for what work they did for the day. Firearm controls were practically non-existent. Belts, shoelaces and knives, among other suspect items, were found inside filthy cells – which the committee had to instruct the officers to clean, said Chikunga. In the run-up to the World Cup last year, after having visited a police station in Mbombela, Chikunga said the committee had had to be “strategic” in its reports so as not to cast a bad light on the city by “making noise” about the state of the police stations. “National police commissioner, I’ll ask again, why is it that this is found by politicians? How can it be that it takes politicians to make things correct? For goodness sake, it cannot be. We are politicians… not managers. It’s a bad habit of the SAPS to sign but not check,” said Chikunga. Cele said “we are working to change what would have been tradition” by “visiting provinces and stations”, among other initiatives. He said the SAPS was now employing the principle of “not listening but seeing”. The SAPS was making great strides in rural policing, with a focus not only on farmers but also the farmworkers. And the decrease in car hijacking was attributed to hard work by officers and the emphasis on visible policing, especially in Joburg, Pretoria and Durban, said Cele. “At no other stage has car hijacking been this low. We are not stolen cars collectors; we must arrest car thieves.” Crowd control remained a “sensitive area”, and while police had to take responsibility to respect and uphold the right of protesters, the onus also rested on the organisers. He said police had to work within the confines of the law and “can’t be trigger happy”, but that, as the management of the SAPS, they could not retreat from encouraging the police to protect themselves when going up against criminals. “They don’t carry broomsticks and they don’t carry feather dusters – they carry serious weapons. We are not going to tell them (police officers) to go and kiss and hug them. They must work decisively,” he said. Poor firearm control and the issues of the licensing of firearms and the number of escapes from police custody were of great concern to the committee. The SAPS reported that there were 468 escapes from police custody in the past financial year, while 191 detainees were unaccounted for. The commissioner said that with regard to firearm control there was a “major war point between us and the management of stations – it’s a big war”. In an attempt to deal with the problem, the SAPS intended to establish “firearm banks”. AVUSA's BuinessLive websit reported a main bone of contention shared by all members of the committee was the exact budget of the two national police days held in 2010 and 2011. "The bill for this year's National Police Day totaled R22 million, which included almost R12 million spent on performing artists alone. Last year, the SAPS incurred R13.6 million in irregular expenditure on this event," Kohler-Barnard said. MPs from the ruling African National Congress and the opposition DA expressed their frustration with the SAPS hierarchy for not being able to give forthright answers to their questions about the irregular expenditure. “They refused to accept a long and obfuscating explanation by head of SAPS procurement General Mokoena about the expenditure being condoned because the state had received the goods and services that were purchased,” the site said. He also said that some of the irregular expenditure related to purchase order numbers not being applied for or granted. Mokoena said that some of that irregular expenditure may have been to do with the 2010 Soccer World Cup when the police were called in at short notice to take over from security guards at the stadiums for a while. However, his answer did not gel with ANC MP Annelize van Wyk who retorted: "I can't believe that that amount (R48 million) had to do with the World Cup. If it did, then it shows a massive lack of planning on your side." Van Wyk went on to say that the police thought they could do whatever they wanted with their money. "But it is not their money. It belongs to the taxpayer," she said. Chikunga became visibly upset with the police delegation saying: "Why can't you give a straight answer when we ask you a question?"
hide

"Mohammed Boudouroua, 38, died when he fell from the roof of a building housing the employment agency (Anapec), pushed by a policeman" who was trying to dislodge him as he took part in a sit-in, said Hakim Sikouk of the Moroccan Association of Human Rights. Sikouk said he was at the morgue at Safi, about 150km south of Rabat, with Boudourouaj's family, who were demanding an inquest. A local police source confirmed the death of the protester, part of a group of unemployed graduates, but claimed Boudouroua had "threatened to set himself alight". He then "threw himself from the roof of the building where he had been holding a sit-in with his comrades for two days," the source added But witnesses said police pushed Boudouroua, who fell on his head, and arrested three others who they questioned and then left on the road north of Safi. Boudouroua, who held seven technical diplomas, was a member of a group aligned with the February 20 movement, holding regular protests to demand the right to work. The February 20 movement, inspired by popular uprisings that toppled the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt, was named after the date of Morocco's first nationwide protest in a series of demonstrations this year. King Mohammed VI has since pledged major reforms including a strengthening of the independence of the judiciary and separation of the government and royal house.
hide

Thousands of people, including worshippers from al-Fatah mosque in central Tunis, protested on the streets of the capital on Friday against Persepolis an animated film aired by Nesmaa TV. The imam at al-Fatah had lashed out against the movie in his sermon, calling it a "serious attack on the religious beliefs of Muslims". Police stopped the marchers with tear gas as they headed toward the Nessma TV station. Protests are ratching up before Tunisia's landmark October 23 election for a constitutional body that will determine the future of this North African nation that overthrew Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, its longtime president, in January. Marjane Satrapi's award-winning adaptation of her graphic novels about growing up during Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution contains a scene showing a character representing God. Depictions of God are considered sacrilege in Islam. Many have questioned Nesmaa's decision to air Persepolis, which won the jury prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, at a time when tensions between secularists and advocates of political Islam are already high. The film had been previously screened in French langauage in Tunisian cinemas without any incident. But its first showing on television, in Tunisian dialect, has drawn severe criticism. Station chief Nabil Karoui apologised for airing the film earlier this week, calling it a "mistake". "I am sorry to all the people who were upset by this sequence, which also shocked me," Karoui told a local radio on Tuesday. "I believe that to have broadcast this sequence was a mistake. We never had the intention of attacking sacred values." There have been other protests against the TV station in the cities of Sousse, Monastir, Sidi Bouzid and Beja. However, organisations such as the Free Patriotic Union (UPL) and the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) have issued press releases condemning the protests as attacks on freedom of expression. Salafists attacked a movie theatre in June that was showing a film they deemed insulting to Islam and last week there were attacks on a university that refused to enroll a student wearing a face veil.
hide

A statement by the police said the two premises will remain cordoned throughout the electoral process which will end with the declaration of the final poll results on October 28. The two premises were cordoned off on Friday by a joint UN Mission in Liberia and the local police following plans by the leading opposition party and ‘‘certain individuals’’ who intend to demonstrate in Monrovia against the partial poll results. Meanwhile, on Sunday, Ms Sirleaf’s party vowed that she will contest a run-off presidential vote even if the opposition boycotts the polls, fanning fears of new violence in the war-torn country. “If the opposition wants to boycott the process, that will not stop the process,” Unity Party campaign director Musa Bility said after the opposition on Saturday rejected as “flawed” provisional results of the October 11 vote placing Sirleaf in the lead. “For us there will be a second round” between Sirleaf, this year’s Nobel Peace Prize co-winner, and former diplomat Winston Tubman of the Congress for Democratic Change, Mr Bility said. “It will be the CDC and the UP.” On Thursday, Mr Tubman complained that 800,000 fake ballots were ‘‘fraudulently’’ introduced into the polling stations on Tuesday and called for an immediate investigation.
hide

Download the summary report from the APCOF publication page
hide

The workshop was held at the Emoyeni Conference Centre in Parktown, Johannesburg and was hosted jointly by the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR), the African Policing Civilian Oversight Forum (APCOF) and the Institute for Security Studies (ISS). The workshop was facilitated by Nomfundo Mogapi of CSVR, Gareth Newham of the ISS and Sean Tait of APCOF. Download the full report along with accompanying brochure and APCOF submission to the Justice Portfolio Committee from the APCOF Publication page
hide

The manual provides context-relevant training material to build nascent oversight capacity in Africa. It is generic in its approach but with a specific focus on the oversight of police. The initial stages of the project involved desk research and review of similar manuals used by oversight agencies and police in Africa. The desk research was complemented with a series of in-depth interviews with ICD investigators and staff of the South African Judicial Inspectorate and the South African Human Rights Commission to understand aspects of their work and the specific challenges encountered by these investigators. View the Manual on the publication page on this site.
hide

Download the publication in English, French and Portuagese from the APCOF Publications page on this site
hide