Civil Society Groups Ask Government to Pardon Looters Amid Police Raids to Retrieve Stolen Goods

• Civil society groups are against the South African Police Service's current house-to-house missions to retrieve stolen goods
• They have called the actions by the government and stated that poor people were unfairly being targeted
• The South African National Christian Forum wants the South African government to offer individuals an opportunity to return stolen goods without penalty

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Civil society groups have called out the South African government's decision to raid the homes of people suspected of participating in the looting that took place in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal in the past weeks.

The South African Police Services alongside members of the South African Defence Force as well as private security companies are currently on a joint effort to retrieve as many stolen goods as possible, according to News24.

Items such as cellphone towers, shopping carts, clothing items, livestock and groceries have been recovered thus far.

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The legality of the police raids has been brought into question with the C19 People's Coalition calling the raids morally devoid.

Speaking to EWN, the C19's People's Coalition's Tauriq Jenkins stated these missions to retrieve stolen goods were targeting impoverished individuals. In reaction to the possibility that the government's plan to destroy all the stolen that has been retrieved, Jenkins says there is no moral logic behind this plan.

“That government will destroy food and goods in a situation where you're dealing with the kind of abject poverty that we're doing, who exactly is benefiting from that decision?"

The South African National Christian Forum has called on the South Africans to show mercy to individuals who voluntarily return stolen goods by not arresting them.

The organisation stated that individuals who voluntarily return goods would be displaying remorse and therefore should be pardoned.

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Zenande Mfenyana feels looted food should be left for those in need, others feel a crime is a crime

Briefly News recently reported that Zenande Mfenyana gets that police needed to step in and do something about the thousands of appliances and other goods that were looted, however, she just does not understand how taking back the food is necessary.

The debate with the whole looting saga involves defence of those who are honestly hungry and crying out for help, and this is why Zenande has been defeated by the authorit.es removing food from homes that clearly needed it.

Taking to social media to air her views, Zenande asked why police had to take back the food. Children are starving, the food is not going to be resold, just give it to the people.

Zenande posted:

Zenande’s post evoked a lot of emotion. With many different opinions being expressed, it seems that a zero-tolerance to acts of criminality is where most people are at.

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@lestsoalo pointed out how police have failed to arrest officials who have stolen from the people, yet they are taking food back from those in need:

"The police failed to arrest people who looted 500b in 3 months but they went for the poor and the venerable black people are unemployed,the worst part of it is they are going to destroy the food."

@Ignaciohb3 took a stand, pointing out that there were many hungry people who did not loot, a crime is a crime:

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Source: Briefly News