According to scores of immigrants who spoke to this reporter Monday
afternoon, the police officers, who disregarded travel documents that
were in the hands of some of the immigrants, began their ongoing
crackdown Friday afternoon.
The operation targeted mainly bus termini, beer spots, nightclubs and
densely populated residential areas in the city centre, like Hillbrow,
Berea and Yeoville, which are well-known areas of habitat for most
Zimbabweans.Â
The police went around arresting everyone who they discovered to be a
foreign national and they seemed to be targeting Zimbabweans, said a
vendor at the busy Park Station long distance bus terminus Monday.Â
Other immigrants, some of them asylum seekers, said that they were
arrested after they had been searched and found to be in possession of
either valid travel documents or asylum permits, which were all
disregarded by the police.
Even if they found you with valid documents, they would still arrest
and charge you with loitering or gambling, regardless of what they
would have found you doing. I was arrested on Friday evening at Park
Town, where I was intending to board an emergency taxi, and was only
released after paying a R200 bribe, said Thulani Moyo, who lives in
the sprawling suburb of Alexandra and works in the city centre.
Some of the victims of the alleged harassment accused the police of
robbing them of their valuables, especially cellular phones, after
charging accusing them of having stolen the gadgets, while others said
that they were only released after they had paid the lawmen bribes
ranging between R100 and R300.
At first they accepted R100 as bribes, but as the operation gained
momentum and when they realised that most Zimbabweans were willing to
part with that amount, they raised it bit by bit until it reached R300,
which was equivalent to the fines, but which most people paid because
they did not want to spend the night in the cells, said Moyo, who said
that there were close to 100 people squeezed in the cells alongside
him, all of them Zimbabweans.
Junior police officers who spoke to The Zimbabwe Times, confirmed the
arrests, which they said were carried out by mostly volunteer officers
drawn from the public.
The operation did not target people of any particular nationality. It
is true that most of those arrested were Zimbabwean nationals, but
maybe that was because they were in the targeted areas. We also do not
ask for bribes or steal from anyone, said one police officer.
South African police are always in the news for ill-treating foreign
nationals, especially Zimbabweans, who they are now said to be
classifying as mobile ATMS, as they usually demand bribes from even
those with valid documents, who they alternatively charge with
loitering. – By Our Correspondent