Violent protests were sparked this month in South Africa by members of a private movement called “Operation Dudula” which blames “undocumented immigrants” for “stealing jobs” and accuses them of being criminals, particularly drug dealers.
The Facebook post claiming that “we can now go … to arrest drug dealers” was published on February 13, 2022, amid the protests, and included a screenshot showing part of the law that deals with citizen arrests, which are restricted to schedule 1 offences in South Africa.
Missing from the screenshot is a list of which crimes fall under schedule 1.
Comments were mixed – some saw the post as an excuse to “take the law into our own hands legally” while others predicted it would likely end in bloodshed.
The screenshot appears to be a selective extract of a more detailed blog post from February 16, 2015, published on a site called Crime SA.
The blog author makes it clear that people who effect a citizen’s arrest are privately liable if it is later deemed unlawful. And, contrary to what the Facebook post claimed, the author explains that dealing drugs is “NOT a Schedule 1” offence, meaning it...
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