A place to talk about more serious topics such as politics, society and current events.
Forum rules
Please read the discussion section rules before posting in here. By posting in this section, you acknowledge to have read and understood them, and agree to abide by them at all times.
Hearing shouting from outside our office in Vermeulen Street and colleagues yelling that a man was being attacked by a mob, I grabbed my cameras and ran downstairs.
Coming out of the building I saw a police van and two policemen holding a handcuffed man whom they were taking into the back of their vehicle.
I ran between onlookers and the policemen and started taking pictures of the suspect as the police were putting him into the back of their van.
As I was taking photographs one policeman looked at me and then called out at his colleague that I had a camera and was taking pictures. He shouted that I should be arrested.
They didn’t say anything to me but simply grabbed me, pulling me towards the back of the van as they tried to grab my camera, which I refused to let go of.
One of the policemen grabbed me around the neck and tackled me to the ground, kicking me as I tried to stay on my feet.
The policeman who held me around my throat and choked me screamed at me not to move as he knelt on my chest pinning me to the tarmac.
I refused to lie still and tried to get back onto my feet as he swore while throttling me.
As my colleagues arrived to help me, the policeman suddenly let go, but kept following me while his colleague tried to stop my workmates from helping to spirit me away.
Pushing his finger into my face he tried to grab my camera again.
I managed to get behind my colleagues and started taking pictures of the policemen who were now, with hands on their guns, confronting my colleagues.
I saw more police cars arriving as back-up. A security guard from our office called me and told me to get into the building, but as I turned to walk to the office the other back-up officers ran at me and grabbed me pulling me towards their vans.
When they asked me where I was going I said I was going back to the office. Suddenly a number of policemen charged at me and my colleagues.
While we fought to keep the gates closed, several officers managed to force their way into the offices through the front main entrance, while others tried to overpower the guards at the driveway gate.
They pushed me against a wall and while several police held my colleagues back, another yelled at me that he was going to arrest me and that he didn’t care. He said even if we called the police commissioner he was still going to arrest me. I managed to run inside the building where I hid my camera and flashcard in a dustbin. A colleague ran to me and said police were trying to get into the building to search for me.
I ran and hid in the bathroom, the only place I thought that they would not search.
When it happened at first I thought the policeman was joking.
When I hid in the bathroom it struck me that I was hiding away from cops who wanted to arrest me for doing my job.
All I was doing was taking pictures of a suspect who was being shoved into a police car by policemen who were doing their job, and saving the life of someone who could have been killed in a mob justice frenzy. - Pretoria News
hello world, find the "I am in charge and no one else are allowed any opinion" information.....
so what are we heading for../
anarchy? totalitarianism?
"Integrity" and "integer" both contain a Latin root meaning "whole; complete." The root sense, then, is that people may be said to be acting with integrity when their beliefs, words, and actions have a sense of unity or wholeness.
Since when have police and politicians in this country ever respected the rule of law? Its not like its ever going to change.
And if he's been white, they'd have called him a racist.
Johannesburg - Police do not know and understand their own regulations, the Professional Journalists' Association, ProJourn, said on Saturday.
The association was responding to an attack on a Pretoria News photographer, Masi Losi, on Friday by police when he took pictures of them arresting a suspected thief.
“This incident serves as a painful reminder that the police do not understand their own regulations (to whit, Standing Order 156) in this regard, let alone the law governing media coverage of crime,” ProJourn said in a statement.
Prime wrote:Since when have police and politicians in this country ever respected the rule of law? Its not like its ever going to change.
And if he's been white, they'd have called him a racist.
Johannesburg - Police do not know and understand their own regulations, the Professional Journalists' Association, ProJourn, said on Saturday.
The association was responding to an attack on a Pretoria News photographer, Masi Losi, on Friday by police when he took pictures of them arresting a suspected thief.
“This incident serves as a painful reminder that the police do not understand their own regulations (to whit, Standing Order 156) in this regard, let alone the law governing media coverage of crime,” ProJourn said in a statement.
I don't know but this whole story sounds fishy. As in their initial arrest must have been something that required a lot of conifentiality and it being infront of their offices. Perhaps the person they initially arrested wanted to get to the journalists because of some important info?
Conspiracy theory...go!
"Friends are a lot like potatoes. If you eat them they die." - Stuart
But then the police should have got a court order to prevent the newspaper from printing the photos. Or chatting to the editor should have been the first course of action. Perhaps the reporter would have been open to delaying the photos if they had spoken to him nicely. Nothing excuses this sort of behaviour
Tribble wrote:But then the police should have got a court order to prevent the newspaper from printing the photos. Or chatting to the editor should have been the first course of action. Perhaps the reporter would have been open to delaying the photos if they had spoken to him nicely. Nothing excuses this sort of behaviour
I agree. I still think there is something bigger behind this. For this to happen right at their offices, I don't think it is just a coincidence.
Even the calling in backup??? part sureley at least one police officer there should have had common sense. It just doesn't add up.
"Friends are a lot like potatoes. If you eat them they die." - Stuart
A surprising amount of modern pseudoscience is coming out of the environmental sector. Perhaps it should not be so surprising given that environmentalism is political rather than scientific.
Timothy Casey
This sickens me. The Police, once again, seem to think that they are above the law. They seem to think that they have the power and the glory to do what they want and it's scary because it's corruption flowing through the whole of the public service.
I frikken hope this is not a minor Zim in the making.
I no longer think of myself as Atheist however I reject religion as a concept where you must do x because someone says so. May contain nuts.
I hope they follow up on that initial arrest. I'm curious to know why that person was arrested and what made him so important that the police would act that way.
"Friends are a lot like potatoes. If you eat them they die." - Stuart
