Thulani Maseko acted as a judge of the first session of the PPT on multinational corporations in the Southern African Developing Countries (SADC) held in Manzini, Swaziland, in 2016.
Here the 43rd Session on Transnational Corporations in Southern Africa (2016-2018)
At the time of his death —the evening of January 21, 2023, in front of his wife and children, at his home in Luhleko, Mbabane — Maseko was a practising lawyer, a senior member of Lawyers for Human Rights Swaziland, and the current chairperson of the Multi-Stakeholder Forum (a convergence of various stakeholders calling for constitutional reform in Eswatini, the last country governed by an absolute monarchy). Maseko was one of the founding members of the Southern Africa Defenders Human Rights Network (SouthernDefenders).
The cold blood assassination came a few hours after King Mswati had issued ‘stern warnings’ to those calling for democratic reforms in the country, and that his hired mercenaries would deal with them, as responsible for the protests which since May 2021 had been repressed, with 80 people killed, 200 plus injured and thousands arrested and detained.
While fully sharing the important statement prepared-by SouthernDefenders where the contribution of Thulani Maseko is further stressed and contextualised in the situation of the SADC (which sees an increasing trend of repression practices of the independence of the judiciary) the PPT cannot but remind among its priorities the urgency of providing a permanent visibility of similar situations in so many countries, as a mandatory indicator of democracy and accountability.