26 January 2012   

We call on the Human Rights Commission to investigate the truth of several reports that the SAPS is systematically rounding up and intimidating Congolese citizens in South Africa on account of not only their nationality but also of their ethnicity and regional origins. 

The reports suggest that the victims of this alleged systematic human rights violation are from specific areas of the DRC which, in the present civil war in the DRC, are opposed to the government.

Any truth in these allegation would suggest not only major systematic human rights violations by the police on South African soil, but also that in a covert manner, outside a known policy framework or parliamentary approval, the South African government has been drawn into the Congolese civil war.

We call on the Human Rights Commission to make a public statement on the matter as soon as possible to appraise us all of the status of this matter.

Contact: Dr Mario GR Oriani-Ambrosini MP, IFP spokesman on Justice on 0825560240.