Hands Off Our Police!
The South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU) unconditionally supports our sister union POPCRU in its struggle to assert the rights of the police officers.
These brave comrades stand between the citizens of the country and the violent criminals who assail us, on a daily basis.
We deplore the media populism that plays games with the police, now urging them on to deal with the menace of violent crime, only to denounce them when the criminals are the losers in the vicious fights that they, the criminals, brutally instigate.
Police are issued with firearms for the protection of the public and themselves. We expect those firearms to be used for those purposes.
It cannot be that each day’s work for our POPCRU colleagues – the protectors of our neighbours and kin, women, old people and children – is liable to be a send-off to the jailhouse or to the graveyard, one or the other.
These police officers are parents. As much as we teach their children, we rely on them to protect us and our children.
We deplore the demonization of police. We deplore the use of the police as a punch-bag by protestors. We deplore the charging of police by armed formations. We deplore the deliberate killing of police by criminals.
SADTU wholeheartedly supports POPCRU’s march scheduled to take place on the 20th of this month.
Down With Police Killings, Down!
Hands Off Our Police!
Issued by Mugwena Maluleke ,SADTU General Secretary, 17 November 2015
