THE Communist Party of Swaziland has called for unity against “Mswati’s killer police” following the latest brutal attacks on high-school students.

Paramilitary forces belonging to autocratic ruler King Mswati III stormed the Sigangeni High School in the northern Hhohho region last Friday, where students were alleged to have eaten popcorn laced with marijuana, attacking the students with high-voltage stun guns and forcing them to sit on an imaginary chair — known as situlo semoya — as they screamed insults at the students.

“They did not conduct the attack as a means to effect an arrest but as an act of extrajudicial punishment of the youngsters,” the communists said.

The party condemned the police violence and called on supporters to stand in solidarity with the students against police brutality.

“[The] police’s wanton violation of human rights has become second nature to them as they routinely do that around the country without consequences,” it said.

Swaziland, also known as Eswatini since 2018, has seen mass youth-led democracy protests sweeping the country since last summer.

The protesters are demanding the unbanning of political parties, which have been outlawed since 1973, and an end to the rule of the south African nation’s absolutist monarch.

Mswati, who has denounced the democracy protesters as satanic, has been in power since 1986. He lives a wealthy and extravagent lifestyle while most of the population survive on less than $1.25 (92p) a day.

Protesters have been met with brute force — 100 have been killed under Mswati’s “shoot-to-kill” orders, and numbers have been burned alive. About 700 have been arrested and remain behind bars.

The Communist Party has previously called for an armed people’s militia to defend the country against state violence.

Today it called for the Swaziland National Association of Teachers to join forces with the Swaziland National Union of Students and the entire working class against police brutality.

“As we advance to freedom under our collective Democracy Now campaign, it is urgent and critical that the working class put aside their differences and unite against the absolute monarch, for freedom, democracy, and socialism,” the communists said.