Police accused of brutality

A Mozambican embassy official has condemned what he described as "systematic harassment" by the South African police of Mozambicans accused of being illegal immigrants. The official told IRIN on Monday that the Mozambican consulate in Johannesburg was interviewing a man who claimed to have been thrown out of a moving train by the police as he was being deported, and a witness to the incident. According to reports by the Pana news agency, five people were thrown from a train carrying deportees to the border last week after they had been beaten and robbed by police accompanying them. On Wednesday, the Mozambican consular-general Junqueiro Manhique visited the Lindela deportation centre in Randfontein, about 50 km from Johannesburg, to hear complaints of abuse. He told the Mozambican news agency AIM that the South African media had been silent "on the systematic brutality that the South African police used against supposedly illegal migrants." South African police spokesman Faizel Kadr on Monday appealed to people that have allegedly been victimised to report to the police. "Any maltreatment or harassment of any individual is totally unacceptable and is condemned in the strongest possible terms," he told IRIN. According to ministry of home affairs' figures, over 60,000 Mozambicans were deported between January-July this year. The total figure for 1998 was 141,000. Deportees are held at Lindela before being transported to the border on special trains manned by police and immigration officials.