JOHANNESBURG (AP) —
Protests against police brutality were held in South Africa and Kenya on Monday, with demonstrators charging that they are suffering abuses by their own authorities, as well as demonstrating against George Floyd’s death in the U.S.
South Africa’s leftist opposition party, the Economic Freedom Fighters, held anti-racism protests in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town over the Floyd’s death after a white police officer knelt on his neck.
The party’s firebrand leader, Julius Malema, said criticized the South African government, saying that it is not doing enough to stop brutality perpetrated by its own police and army.
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In Johannesburg about 100 protesters closed a major thoroughfare in front of the U.S. consulate. They knelt in the street for eight minutes and 46 seconds, to mark the time that the American police officer knelt on Floyd’s neck. The South African protesters held up Black Lives Matter placards.
Malema, leading the protest at the U.S Embassy in the nation’s capital, Pretoria, was joined by the widow of Collins Khosa, a black South African man who died after allegedly being assaulted by black soldiers enforcing the country’s strict lockdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
Khosa was allegedly beaten by soldiers because he was found drinking beer at his home, which was legal during the lockdown although sales of alcohol was prohibited. The incident happened more than two months ago at Khosa’s home in Johannesburg’s poor Alexandra township.
The opposition party has offered legal fees to help Khosa’s family press a court case against the army for his death, said Malema. He said the government has not properly responded to Khosa’s death, saying that the army has already absolved its members of any blame.
“We are in the second phase of suing the state on behalf of the family. We are more than convinced that the judges will be on our side,” said Malema, according to the news website News24. “It was brutality and abuse of power and we don’t associate with that.”
In Kenya’s capital, residents of one of Nairobi’s poorest areas held a peaceful protest over police brutality and killings which have plagued their neighborhood in recent years.
Juliet Wanjera, a member of the Mathare Social Justice Center, said the group organized the protest also in solidarity with global movement against police brutality sparked off by the death of Floyd.
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About 200 people holding placards with messages such as “Youth Lives Matter,” and “The Right of Life is Absolute,” marched through Nairobi’s second biggest shantytown.
Human rights groups say Kenya’s poor suffer the brunt of unlawful police killings and abuses because they don’t have resources to seek redress. Residents of the Mathare and Dandora areas, the poorest in Nairobi which are home to several hundred thousand people, say they have suffered the most of these abuses in recent years.
“We feel we are being harassed like this and being treated this way because we are poor people,” said Wanjera. “So today the poor people of this country have come together to say’No!′ to police killings and police brutality and also stand in solidarity with the global protest against police excesses all over the world.”
Last week Kenyan police were accused of killing a homeless man in Mathare for violating a curfew put in place by government to sow the spread of the coronavirus.
Kenya’s Independent Police Oversight Authority said that while enforcing the coronavirus curfew police in have killed 15 people and are accused of 31 cases of torture and injuring people.
The oversight body said a police officer will be charged with the killing of 13-year-old boy while police were enforcing the curfew.
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Odula reported from Nairobi, Kenya.