{"id":8192,"date":"2018-03-16T08:12:29","date_gmt":"2018-03-16T08:12:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/?p=8192"},"modified":"2018-03-16T14:38:59","modified_gmt":"2018-03-16T14:38:59","slug":"international-day-against-police-brutality-street-vendors-in-dire-straits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/international-day-against-police-brutality-street-vendors-in-dire-straits\/","title":{"rendered":"International Day against Police Brutality: street vendors in dire straits"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s 11:00 a.m. on 15 March in Bujumbura City Center. It\u2019s raining. Street sellers are performing their daily activities with difficulty. Saleswomen with basket full of goods on their heads are selling their products to all passerby. In front of \u201cVillage Market\u201d, two saleswomen are selling their orange and are bargaining with customers.<\/p>\n

\"Saleswomen

Saleswomen in Bujumbura city center say they work in difficult conditions.<\/p><\/div>\n

Suddenly, four police officers coming from nowhere surround them. \u201cPickup your goods! You know the destination\u201d, says one of them. The two saleswomen carry their baskets on their heads and follow them. At a 100- meter distance, a long discussion is held between them. After twenty minutes, the saleswomen return. \u201cWe didn\u2019t find sufficient money to give them. We told them we didn\u2019t get any customer because it is raining\u201d, one salesman says.<\/p>\n

He, however, says they must give the money at the end of the day, otherwise, they would endure the police brutality. \u201cIf we do not cooperate, we will be persecuted,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Those sellers say there is a vehicle moving around in charge of taking street sellers to the police station. They say they usually wear their cardigans and badges for identification but they don\u2019t wear them since few months. \u201cWe ignore the motives\u201d, says a salesman of spare parts. Sellers say the police officers often take them to the police detention center known as \u201cBSR\u201d.<\/p>\n

Street sellers urge the police officers not to use brutality when they arrest them. \u201cIt would be better to run a sensitization campaign on the consequences of selling goods in streets instead of persecuting us,\u201d says one saleswomen. Those sellers also say accidents occur when they try to escape the police officers.<\/p>\n

Pierre Nkurikiye, Spokesperson for Burundi Police says police officers never use brutality. He says the Burundi police have never received any instruction from the high officials to disturb the peaceful population. \u201cIt is true that some police may make some mistakes but they are individually punished according to the law,\u201d he says. Nkurikiye says the police officers\u2019 main duties are to restore peace and security. \u201cWe have never used force in any situation\u201d, he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s 11:00 a.m. on 15 March in Bujumbura City Center. It\u2019s raining. Street sellers are performing their daily activities with difficulty. Saleswomen with basket full of goods on their heads are selling their products to all passerby. In front of \u201cVillage Market\u201d, two saleswomen are selling their orange and are bargaining with customers. Suddenly, four […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":8193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,670],"tags":[1346,1347],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8192"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8192"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8194,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8192\/revisions\/8194"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}