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Swaziland Pro-Democracy Protesters Rally in Manzini Amid Police Arrests
About 250 pro-democracy protesters rallied in Swaziland, Africa’s last absolute monarchy, a day after police detained as many as 50 activists, according to Amnesty International.
The demonstration took place in Manzini, the southern African nation’s second-biggest city, said Zakhele Mabuza, a spokesman for the Peoples’ United Democratic Front, or Pudemo. Police arrested Pudemo President Mario Masuku today and are holding him at police headquarters in Manzini, he said, adding that state security officials outnumbered the protesters.
“He was removed from the crowd along with about three others,” Mabuza said by phone from Manzini. Pudemo Deputy President Sikhumbuzo Pakhathi, who was detained yesterday, is still in police custody and the group’s lawyers are trying to find out if he has been charged, he said.
Another demonstration may be held tomorrow in the capital, Mbabane, Mabuza said. Political parties are banned in the Swazi kingdom, which is ruled by King Mswati III, 42.
London-based Amnesty International said yesterday in a statement that the majority of those arrested were released without charge. Most of the 16 others detained were freed today, Wendy Hleta, a police spokeswoman, said by phone from the capital, Mbabane.
Campaigning for Change
The arrests yesterday occurred at a meeting of groups campaigning for political change in Swaziland, Amnesty said.
“The arbitrary arrest of these political activists, lawyers, trade unionists and journalists is nothing short of police harassment and intimidation,” Amnesty International’s southern Africa researcher, Mary Rayner, said in the statement.
Some of those detained were members of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, Cosatu, Hleta said.
“We didn’t think South Africans had a right to be involved in our domestic affairs,” Hleta said.
Cosatu condemned the arrests in a statement e-mailed today from Johannesburg.
“Every arrest brings closer the liberation of the people of Swaziland and we urge the people to stand firm in their demand for democracy, it is a painful, but worthy struggle,” Cosatu said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Latham in Durban at blatham@bloomberg.net.
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