Struggle veteran and former cabinet minister Ronnie Kasrils has called on President Jacob Zuma to fire the minister of police and the commissioner of police, it was reported on Monday.
In a letter to Beeld newspaper, Kasrils wrote that the culture of police cruelty should be changed to reflect the values for which the African National Congress had fought.
Kasrils was reacting to the death of Mozambican taxi driver Mido Macia, who was found dead in a police holding cell last week, allegedly after being dragged behind a police van.
University of Limpopo criminologist Prof Cornelis Roelofse told the newspaper an article in a United States journal on police practice and research had claimed that police violence had increased since ANC leadership changed after the Polokwane conference in 2007
According to Roelofse, several policy changes, including the establishment of military ranks and the beginning of a "war" against crime, had significant consequences.
It had become much easier for officials with aggressive tendencies to shoot to kill, he said.
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