Government ordered to stop banning union meetings

Swaziland’s industrial court on Tuesday ordered the government and the police to stop interfering with meetings called by the country’s trade unions, news reports said. Justice Stanley Sapire’s ruling came after two affiliates of the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU) appealed against the banning of their meetings by Prime Minister Sibusiso Dlamini, DPA reported. In November, Dlamini banned all meetings called by the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) and the Swaziland Nurses Associations (SNA) after a mass meeting in the South African town of Nelspruit near the Swaziland border. At the meeting, the participants, mainly trade unions and underground political parties resolved to overthrow the traditional government of King Mswati III and replace it with an interim government that would oversee political transformation in the kingdom.