SA Women Fight Back along with our partner organisations in the fight against Gender Based Violence strongly condemns the possible release of violent offenders during the time of this Covid 19 pandemic.

We oppose the views and utterances made by the South African Sentenced and Awaiting Trial Prisoners (Sasapo) and South African Prisoners Organisation for Human Rights (Sapohr). Sasapo has called for the release long-serving prisoners who had completed at least half of their sentences and those who had been in prison for more than 15 years.

As civil society we cannot allow 24 000 inmates to be released of which these are inmates that were imprisoned for crimes such as rape and murder. 

We know our parole boards release offenders only for them to reoffend again.  We say NO, if you do the crime you must do the time!

We cannot have a government that cares more about the human rights of prisoners than that of it's own citizens. Where are the rights of the victims who were violated by these offenders?