Qacha’s Nek, Oct.18 — The Department of Police Directorate jointly with Sesotho Media and Development (SMD) and the National University of Lesotho (NUL) through its faculty of law held a two-day refresher training for twenty police officers in supervisory positions on human rights observation.
This initiative comes after the Department of Controller of Police Standards realised that complaints against the police officers piled up.
In an interview with the Agency, Mr. Seabata Ranthocha, Police Directorate Senior Research Officer said they saw a need to engage with the police to remind them that while they are still working, they should work without violating human rights to avoid the government losing a lot of compensation money to victims.
He said this training is not new and it has so far yielded positive results as the rate of police brutality declined.
“The impact is visible as we do not have many new civil claims recently – brutality is minimised therefore the money we used to loose to claims could in future be used for resources instead,” he said.