The death of 25-year-old law student at the University of Eswatini, Thabani Nkomonye, in May 2021 triggered a wave of pro-democracy protests[3] across Eswatini,[4] Africa’s last absolute monarchy. The king continues to exercise absolute power to appoint the prime minister and cabinet and to dissolve parliament. A 1973 decree bans political parties and prevents political parties from contesting elections; the decree also restricts freedom of association and expression.
The unrest began when students and teachers[5] took to the streets to call for accountability for Nkomonye’s death, allegedly at the hands of the Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS), and to express their dissatisfaction[6] with the impunity and corruption of the police.
On May 17, 2021, the government initiated an investigation into Nkomonye’s killing, which concluded[8] that Nkomonye was not killed by the police but died in a car accident. The coroner recommended that administrative disciplinary action be taken against four police officers for gross negligence and dereliction of duty for failing to investigate Nkomonye’s accident. Further, the coroner recommended that the REPS initiate an assessment of the conduct of police officers in their interactions with members of the public.
In the meantime, in June, demonstrators began to formally demand a range of political and economic reforms by delivering petitions to their respective tinkhundla (administrative units that function as Member of Parliament (MP) constituencies, each clustering various chiefdoms). Demonstrations spread widely throughout rural areas as the majority of tinkhundla received petitions. This caught the authorities off guard. On June 24, the government prohibited people from delivering their petitions in-person invoking COVID-19 regulations in place at the time, but said petitions could be sent via email. Pro-democracy activists, including those interviewed for this research, believe that the government halted in-person petitions to hinder what they perceived to be the only viable avenue available to them to express their grievances publicly, and to prevent activists from possibly encouraging others to do the same, and that it showed the government’s reluctance to engage in dialogue.
In response to the government’s new restrictions, the protests grew and became violent towards the end of June. Demonstrators blocked roads, burned tires, and burned and looted commercial properties and farms linked to the state, as well as local, privately-owned shops. Confrontations with the police escalated. Eswatini authorities responded by deploying the military to disperse the protests and to search for suspected looters, storming peoples’ homes and destroying property.
Pro-democracy activists and protesters, many of whom were young people, across different constituencies, defied the prohibition and marched to deliver petitions to MPs, calling for an end to the absolute monarchy of King Mswati III. They believed the king had lost touch[16] with the needs and interests of his people, and they did not want to be treated as subjects but as citizens. They called for democracy to be the system of governance. They also called for[ the government to lift the ban on political parties and for the future governance framework to be based on a multiparty political system, where political parties can contest power in a free, fair, and credible election.
By late June, the unrest had grown into daily pro-democracy marches in several localities in the country, with protesters voicing entrenched political and soci0-economic grievances. They accused the king and the royal family, including the king’s 15 wives at the time (now 16), of using public resources to fund a lavish lifestyle off the backs of 1.2 million[20] citizens, 34 percent of whom are unemployed, including 56 percent[22] of young people between ages 15 and 25. What had started as an expression of outrage against the alleged police brutality and impunity in the Nkomonye case, transformed[23] into wider calls for democratic reforms and culminated[24] in a broader movement for democracy in the country.
The security forces responded to the various protests by firing rubber bullets, tasers, and teargas at protesters and passers-by, and physically assaulting them, in many cases with no warning, and also used live ammunition without any apparent attempts to use less-lethal force.
On June 29, the Eswatini government shut down the internet across the country as a measure to silence the protests, violating citizens’ right to information, and imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew. On July 4, security forces arrested and reportedly tortured two South African journalists reporting on the protests. According to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), soldiers also forced the journalists to destroy photographs and video recordings of the protests; they were released after lawyers intervened in their case.
Based on statements from victims as well as publications from bodies such as Eswatini’s own Commission on Human Rights, Human Rights Watch believes that the security forces’ resort to use of force in responding to the protests, was often wholly unjustified and even where force may have been justified, it was disproportionate and excessive leading to violations of the rights to life, to security of the person, and to the prohibition on torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. The authorities also violated the rights to freedom of assembly, association, and expression, as well as to information.
