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#Coronavirus: Pretoria man nabbed after Covid-19 mocking video goes viral

───   09:20 Sun, 05 Apr 2020

#Coronavirus: Pretoria man nabbed after Covid-19 mocking video goes viral | News Article

A 23-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly contravening the regulations of the Disaster Management Act by mocking the coronavirus containment efforts, the National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure (NatJOINTS) said Sunday.


On March 27, little snippets of a video in which two young men were seen travelling around Pretoria "with one of them continuously swearing, mocking efforts to curb the Covid-19 virus and bragging they do not comply with laws put in place to contain the virus went viral", South African Police Service (SAPS) spokesman Brigadier Vishnu Naidoo said in a statement.

In one of the snippets, one man appeared to be standing in front of a police station and continued swearing about the virus. This matter was investigated and the suspect was traced and found inside a residential complex in the Lyttelton policing area, he said.

The suspect was likely to face charges of at least contravening regulation 11B of the Disaster Management Act. He was currently in police custody and was expected to appear in the Pretoria Magistrates' Court on Monday.

"The arrest of this suspect, as well as at least six other suspects that have been arrested for creating such videos and posting fake news, should be a reminder that the security forces enforcing the regulations to contain the Covid-19 virus have the capacity and capability to identify those responsible for such transgressions, however long it may take."

People were urged to view Covid-19 seriously, as thousands of people globally had lost their lives to the disease, including at least six people in South Africa.

"The regulations are being enforced not to punish people, but to protect lives against this pandemic," Naidoo said.


African News Agency

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