Friday, November 13, 2009

Road to Hell

Before:
Three year old. Sitting in the back seat of a car. Metal Pipe.

Assumed:
Three year old. Gun.

Aftermath:
Dead Three year old. Mistaken Policeman.

The toddler was seated at the back seat of a car. The policeman went up to the car and fired through the window. The next thing he knew, he had mistaken a pipe for a gun. Though, CNN reports read no pipe or weapon was found at the crime scene. Another officer jumped out of the police van, grabbed the victim's uncle nearby pushed him to the ground and called him a suspect of a crime that had yet to be mentioned throughout the ordeal. The dead boy was later removed from the seat placed on the ground beside the ground waiting for a morgue van to arrive. The body laid there for 6 hours and the mother was not allowed to go near while the @%#^&^ police officer was sucking on a lollipop. The police must have been so frightened by the presence of the toddler and his life threatening device!

This is certainly not the change people, both Africans and the rest of the world, are looking forward to. Apparently this is not the first since the policy was implemented. A man and his mother were shot and this gets worse, the police were actually called in to settle a domestic fight!! A domestic fight! They killed the man and the mother was wounded. Police do not mean safety anymore. On another occasion a 30 year old female died in a van that was shot at 13 times cos the officials assumed it was hijacked! Many of these random killings were based on ASSUMPTIONS! And their instincts just suck! Africa is infamous for its crime rates and with such a law in place, it certainly does not make an outsider feel any safer in that country.

South Africa's Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation this to say: 

These incidents are not random events but reflect an overall breakdown of control over the use of lethal force within the SAPS [South Africa Police Service]. It is reasonable to believe that this breakdown of control is due to a climate of confusion which has been created by statements which have been made over the last year, and particularly in the last couple of months, by senior politicians and police leaders.

South Africa's government has implemented a Shoot to Kill Policy whereby the Police is allowed to kill suspected criminals without further interrogation. The top officer who suggested it and later got it approved by the government claims it is to ensure a safe South Africa for the 2010 Word Cup.

What the statistics have proven is the other way round. Compared to 51 people dying daily in South Africa its now 81!!  Instead of the existing criminals, it this random killing that is gonna keep tourism away from the nation. And the shootings are legal! Sighs!

While reading about Africa, I realised that perhaps Africa and Russia belong to the same damned boat after all. Similar to Africa's Shoot to Kill policy, Russia's secret security services in the name of "investigation" to root out rebels lay their hands on innocent victims. Many Russian families (especially from the area Ingushtia) have lost their young sons to such brutal behavior by the "secret" police. They barge into houses in the wee hours, they refuse to produce identification and instead demand you to produce a passport, drag the supposed suspect away together with his passport, he goes through a hell of a time and is later left to die.

Each week, according to Mutsolgov, young men are taken by the security services: 

They can be taken on suspicion of being a rebel, knowing a rebel or just having been seen with a suspected rebel." He adds that men are also taken in for appearing too overtly Muslim.

Mutsolgov works for a human rights Organisation called Mashr. According to Mashr's statistics: Since 2002, ever since the Russian forces took over the Southern Russian Area of Ingushetia, 1000 Russians have died and 175 have been missing.

Since, the killings are by authorised secret services called FSB, relations of victims are unable to make appeals or request for further investigation into the matter. In the attempt at trying to eradicate the nation of extremists, the Russian secret services have indirectly paved the way for grieving relations to join existing rebellions just to take revenge on the FSB.

Both these nations are need to revamp their policies. It is just not the right way to eliminate crime rates. I honestly do not see a difference between genocide and the current policies these countries have recently undertaken. Humans have gone berserk and Human Rights is down the drain.

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