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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol. 35. No. 13. 14 June 1972
The Cape Times — They displayed great tolerance'
The Cape Times
They displayed great tolerance'
| 1: | the deployment of 50 policemen armed with rubber truncheons |
| 2: | police baton-charge exercises on the lawns behind Parliament before the event |
| 3: | the indiscriminate assaulting of men and girl students with truncheons and by kicking and punching—all in the presence of senior officers up to the rank of brigadier. |
| 4: | the appearance of a number of thugs in shorts and other non-official apparel who joined in the clubbing without restraint from the official police |
| 5: | chasing students along Wale Street, catching them and beating them with batons |
| 6: | several students, including girls, being beaten up 3nd repeatedly kicked by seven policemen a: once and then dragged by the hair down the stone steps to the pavement |
| 7: | a photograph on the front page of the Burger of six uniformed and one plainclothes policemen, three of them with raised truncheons, over one cowering student whose shirt had been ripped off |
| 8: | the man-handling of a woman newspaper photographer |
| 9: | the hitting on the head of an Argus reporter who remonstrated about 'he attack on the woman, followed by in attack by five policemen who rained blows on his head |
| 10: | seizing Press photographers' cameras and ripping film out of cameras |
| 11: | an attack (seen by Mr. Japie Basson, MP. in Queen Victoria Street '20 minutes after the event) on a student by a policeman who rained blows on his head and shoulders |
| 12: | chasing a student up and down 'he aisles George's Cathedral, catching him, dragging him out of the church by his hair, continually punching him with fists and then throwing him down the steps |
| 13: | beating people with truncheons in the pews of St. George's Cathedral |
| 14: | grabbing a bleeding student whom a priest was taking to a doctor and again beating him up |
| 15: | clubbing Mrs. Yvonne van Oudenhove over the head, arresting her and pushing her into a police van when she said the police were behaving like brutes |
| 16: | the shouting of obscenities by the police |
| 17: | the hitting of a woman who shouted she was pregnant (when she was again hit in the face) until she was physically sick |
| 18: | hitting reporter Pamela Diamond or, the head and shoulders with a truncheon, seizing the front of her blouse, dragging her for yards |
| 19: | two policemen running into two girls, knocking them down, whereupon they were kicked by a following policeman |
| 20: | belligerence addressed to passer by, who included a member of Parliament |
| 21: | smashing a baton into the face of a girl who said, "I am just standing here " |
But the situation calls for more than an examination of the law and the confirmation or otherwise of these facts testified to by eyewitnesses. The country must be told whether, in using violence on this uninhibited scale to deal with students demonstrating in a cathedral, the police behaved as a controlled and disciplined force in a civilized Western country. Some years ago, at Sharpeville, it was necessary in order to maintain law and order to shoot dead some 70 Africans. Some people at the time thought that the degree of force was disproportionate to the dimensions of the threat and some feared that the police had acted without proper control by their officers The judicial commission which was then appointed did not, because of its terms of reference quiet the misgivings The commission's report was a statement of the facts of what happened but the main issue, whether the action was a proper and disciplined police operation, was not dealt with. The commissioner found that the reasonableness or otherwise of the police action did not fall within his terms of reference and the police were not called on to reply to the implied allegations.
The same mistake should not be made again. The crisp issue is whether, to deal with a hundred or so demonstrating students, it was necessary to heat, bludgeon and assault on the scale indicated by the reports itemized above.
The Minister of Police said on Friday night of the police action: "They displayed great tolerance." He has a chance to-day in Parliament to reconsider this. It will be a sorry day for South Africa if the political heads of the police department assert without independent corroboration that what happened was an example of good, normal South African police work. It will be a disaster if the event is presented as an example of Afrikaner kragdadigheid. Many people in this country, and many more outside this country, will have another name for it.