The Right to the City: Police activity at the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG)

posted by Ismail Farouk at Sunday, August 24, 2008

This article first appeared in the Urban Concerns Research Report (April 2008), produced for the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) as part of the Urban Concerns Research Project.

Every day hundreds of undocumented migrants and refugees are arrested and loaded into trucks within the confines of the JAG - In the process many human rights abuses occur in their arrest. Sometimes entire families are arrested and detained (including children and babies). All of this activity occurs at the vehicular entrance to the JAG where corruption is a common feature in the activity.

Volunteer police officers make up the bulk of patrolling officers who mingle in the public realm outside the gates of the gallery, where passer-bys are nabbed and detained unlawfully. The police are also known to go door to door in flats in the surrounding area in their efforts to detain undocumented migrants. Through our research process, we have found out that the bribe for release is a hefty R500. The police are quite open about talking about bribery and seem to be solely focused on the activity of extracting money from their victims all day. Sometimes volunteer police will go and request payment victim's friends and family. In most cases, if you cannot afford the full amount of R500, you are released but only at 15h30 when the police trucks are about to leave.

Friends and families of victims gather at the gates of the gallery every day around15h00 to plead and negotiate for the release of victims. There is much jeering as the truck leaves at 16h00 as police hurl abuse at those who have gathered at the gates.

Findings:

Not all undocumented migrants are arrested. Most victims say that it depends on your attitude towards the police and this determines weather you are arrested or not
Language and dress determine weather you are approached and detained by police.
Volunteer police are not receiving a monthly salary and resort to corruption as a means of earning an income.
By 10:30am the police trucks and van are filled with people. However, more people are arrested during the course of the day. Sometimes people wait around the police trucks because they are fully loaded.
If you pay the bribe you are free to go.
People who try to escape are brutally beaten.
Police utilise the ablution facilities at the gallery and often are seen washing the blood of victims within the gallery.
Metro police are also part of the operation. The Metro Police work in conjunction with the police and are responsible for confiscating trader's goods or stolen trolleys. Traders' goods are released with a bribe.
Metro Police utilise the vehicular entrance as a motorist checkpoint - drivers license and roadworthy of private vehicles and taxis are checked.
More recently, cars have also been impounded into the gallery space. Impounded cars are released with a bribe.

Action: As a result of the injustice occurring at the JAG vehicular gate, the Urban Concerns research team, planned and implemented a number of creative strategies for dealing with the issue of police corruption. Our primary focus was the gathering of appropriate audio and visual evidence, which pointed to police corruption and brutality.

Checkout this short video shot at the gate:

Ultimately, it was a meeting coordinated by the director of JAG and the responsible policing administrators, which has led to the end of the abuse of undocumented migrants. However, police are still utilizing the JAG yard to park police cars, and have subsequently shifted their focus to the surrounding Noord Taxi Rank area.

Labels: Citizenship, migration, right to the city, urban concerns, urban research