Viewfinder launched in October 2019 with the first exposé in a serialized investigation titled Killing the Files.
This investigation was rooted in our exclusive access to a government database containing tens of thousands of criminal complaints against the police, as well as to whistleblowers within the country’s police watchdog, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID). It exposed widespread fraud in IPID’s handling of police brutality cases in South Africa.
Under pressure to meet performance targets, the investigation found, IPID case workers and managers closed such cases prematurely — in some instances without investigating them at all. The result was a systemic obstruction of justice for thousands of victims of police brutality. Suspects within the police — accused of crimes such as torture, murder, and rape — also escaped accountability.
Read the exposé which launched the project here.
This project was shortlisted for the Taco Kuiper Award for Investigative Journalism (2020) and won the Gatefield Africa People Journalist of the Year Award (2021).