It is unbelievable that the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popocru) believes that the #BlueLightEight Presidential Protection Services members were the actual victims in the incident of March 2023, which left their victim battered and unconscious, the car damaged, and all of the passengers, including the driver, fearing for their lives. Add to that the psychological, emotional, financial and career scars they have to deal with to this day, and it is no surprise that most South Africans see them as thugs, as the Chairperson of the Police Portfolio Committee, Ian Cameron, rightly called them after their disciplinary acquittal.
“Action Society strongly condemns the role all the relevant unions played in delaying and influencing the disciplinary process for more than twenty months,” said Juanita du Preez, Action Society spokesperson. “We were involved with the process from the first day and experienced the frivolous tactics they used to manipulate the process. This is not what South Africa expects from the people who are supposed to protect us.”
We fully support the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee in speaking out about the ruling in the disciplinary hearing and hope that we will have more transparent and reliable processes going further.
