3.10 Police brutality and state oppression during protest action
This Ninth National Congress notes:

1. There is growing dissatisfaction among communities on provision of basic services by government, such as infrastructure development, electrification and sanitation etc.
2. The sometimes inhumane, barbaric and violent response by the police in managing these demonstrations, which reverts to the old brutal apartheid style of tear gas, bullets and skiet, skop en donner.
3. The current narrow and defeatist approach to community policing, which renders it irrelevant and ineffective.
4. The increasing incidents of malicious prosecution of striking workers which seem to be a tactic by the state to intimidate workers and unions and seek to tie them and their resources up in the courts.
5. The refusal of municipalities to allow striking workers to gather and/or march.
6. The conflicts of interest of some ANC councillors in companies have their silence in condemning police conduct.
7. To acknowledge the progressive role played by members of POPCRU in protecting the workers’ right to strike.

Believing:
1. Peaceful and lawful demonstrations are acceptable, indeed necessary, for a democratic society.
2. Communities are responsible for ensuring that their demonstrations are not abused by other elements. Citizens have a civic duty to abide by the law and collaborate with the police.
3. The police have the right to prevent lawlessness, violent activities and damage to property takes place during demonstrations and to ensure compliance with the rule of law; but this does not mean banning demonstrations or using unnecessary force to break them up.

Therefore this Ninth National Congress resolves:

1. To foster, promote and consolidate community policing during peaceful demonstrations.
2. To ensure that the right of workers to demonstrate and picket is defended, and that the police are trained and equipped to deal with crowd control in a peaceful manner
3. To continuously embark on an integrated programme of training and education within all the relevant structures on the role of the police within a democratic state.
4. To develop a collaborative approach with law enforcement agencies to apprehend and expose acts of lawlessness during such demonstrations.
5. To condemn with the strongest possible terms any form of police brutality during peaceful demonstrations, and to call upon the police top management to put effective measures and systems in place to ensure an immediate stop to unnecessarily violent police actions in these situations.
6. To influence and encourage the state to formulate all-inclusive approach on the strategic direction of the security establishment.
7. To encourage development of a well-resourced and inclusive proactive, effective, and inclusive policing approach.
8. To campaign for the streamlining of all policing strategies and activities by all security agencies to ensure an efficient and effective collaborative approach to crime and criminality.
9. To encourage and support a continuous campaign by the state for retrieving all unlicensed firearms and discourage possession of small calibre firearms. The state must manage and strictly control the issuing and control of firearms to private security agencies as well as monitoring the database and usage of such arms.
10. To approach the Human Rights Commission for an enquiry into police brutality and malicious prosecution of workers on strike.
11. To campaign for the democratisation of the process of applying for gatherings and marches, including removing the powers of municipalities to unilaterally withdraw the right of workers to gather or march in the course of a strike.
12. To condemn the behaviour of the police by arresting leaders during marches by striking workers as this only creates chaos at such a critical time and to call for the dropping of all charges by the state against our leaders.
13. To engage government on new methods of crowd control
14. To call on the police management and the police in general to ensure adherence to the Code of Good Practice on Police Conduct during pickets and strikes.
15. To ensure that state institutions are not used to break the strike and picket lines.