Pretoria – The South African Police Service (SAPS) says a study conducted by the University of Johannesburg regarding the public order policing unit and the R3.3 billion budget proposal submitted to the Portfolio Committee on Police is a deliberate misinterpretation of facts.
“The findings of this research are a deliberate and distorted interpretation of our submission to the Portfolio Committee on Police.
“It is clear that this deliberate misinterpretation of facts supports the view held by some of the researchers that the police should not be involved in the management of protests. The information was clearly manipulated in order to suit this view,” said the police in a statement.
SAPS said its management takes strong exception to being accused of lying to Members of Parliament.
On 29 August 2014, SAPS management briefed the portfolio committee on the state of public order policing and the plans to enhance public order policing within the police service to mitigate the current and future situation in respect of crowd management and violent protest actions.
“The motivation provided for the additional funding was not just for additional capacity to do crowd control management during violent protests, but for crowd management in general,” said the police.
In terms of the Regulation of Gatherings Act and the Constitution of South Africa everyone has the right to air their views in public, provided that their actions are lawful and peaceful.
There is also an obligation to police public events in accordance with the National Sports and Recreation Act.
“… the implications are that in general, all assemblies, gatherings, meetings, demonstrations etc, will be classified as crowd management – peaceful - incidents as we have to deploy officers from the public order policing unit.
“This is a specialist unit in crowd management.”
The police said violent incidents are not defined by police intervention, but by the conduct of participants that violate or infringe upon the rights of others.
Violent actions include blocking the streets, throwing stones or vandalising property.
When roads are barricaded during demonstrations and weapons are being brandished, the police will act accordingly to safeguard the rights of others, who are not participating in the demonstration, to restore peace and order.
When crowds indulge in cases of misconduct and criminality, the police will open a docket when a crime is committed.
“The SAPS therefore did not conflate incidents and protests. Any crowd management action is defined as an incident, which will either be peaceful or termed as unrest.
“In other words “incidents” include all protest actions, peaceful gatherings and pure unrest incidents that cannot be justified as crowd management incidents like taxi violence, gang violence, ethnic and racial violence, demonstrations, political meetings, road barricades and revenge attacks by a small group of people,” said the SAPS.
It added that the actions of the participants can be calculated as incidents registered on the Incident Registration Information System. Further to this if the protest actions continue for an extended period, the police will register it as one incident on a daily basis. – SAnews.gov.za
