SAHRC probing naked miners' claims

2012-11-06 10:16

(File) (Shutterstock)

Johannesburg - The SA Human Rights Commission is investigating reports that photographs of non-striking mineworkers who had been stripped naked were being circulated on social media, according to a report on Tuesday.

"As the commission, we will be taking up this matter," SAHRC spokesperson Isaac Mangena told SAfm.

"We have mandated our Limpopo office to take up the matter at the mine and we basically call on the police to investigate this because this is clearly a criminal act."

The New Age reported on Monday that strikers forced four workers at the Amandelbult mine to strip naked, to punish them for reporting for work.

A photograph in the newspaper showed three men over the age of 50, and a woman in her 30s, standing naked in front of a crowd of striking workers.

Mangena said the SAHRC would work with the Commission for Gender Equality to "look at what can be done to protect the rights of women and men whose pictures have been circulating [on] social media".

The New Age reported on Tuesday that social networking site Facebook's administrators removed the pictures on Monday afternoon.

Anglo American Platinum miners are currently on an unprotected strike at its Union and Amandelbult mines in Limpopo.

- SAPA