Question NW2830 to the Minister of Police
24 August 2015 - NW2830
Figlan, Mr AM to ask the Minister of Police
(1)Does his department have any programmes or measures in place to eliminate prejudice towards undocumented foreign nationals in the country’s police services; if not, why not; if so, what are the relevant details of these measures; (2) (a) does his department currently have or (b) is planning to institute programmes within the SA Police Service to (i) educate and (ii) train police officers on the rights of undocumented foreign nationals while conducting (aa) raids and (bb) arrests; (3) did police officers undergo any type of special operational training before they participated in the Operation Fiela raids alongside the SA National Defence Force to prevent the violation and/or abuse of the human rights of foreign nationals and local citizens during the specified raids and arrests; if not, why not; if so, what type of training did they receive?
Reply:
- Yes. SAPS have, for example, measures in place to handle all persons in custody of the Service. The aforesaid is governed by various Standing Orders instructing the elimination of any type of prejudice towards all the categories of persons in police custody, including undocumented foreign nationals. Standing Order (G) 341 deals with the arrest and the treatment of an arrested person until such person is handed to the Community Service Centre Commander. The handling of persons in custody of the service from their arrival at the police station is outlined by Standing Order (G) 361 including that undocumented foreign Nationals are not allowed to be detained in the same cell with other persons in custody who committed other crimes.
- A booklet namely “Immigration and Policing Volume 4” was compiled and produced during 2011 by the SAPS Communication and Liaison Services and Division Visible Policing to sensitize and capacitate police officers regarding various contexts when police officers may interact with foreign nationals.
Senior management of SAPS has already received the booklets and will ensure the distribution thereof to all the members in due course.
3. The Division Visible Policing has engaged with the Lawyers for Human Rights in order to capacitate the police officers in the policing of foreign nationals. It envisaged piloting the training and education to police officers in the problematic provinces first before rolling it out to the rest of the country.