My name is Aristeidis ( Aris ) Danikas.
I am a Greek / South African, born in Greece and immigrated to South Africa when I was a teenager. While studying in electronics, I started my own electronics business that ran successfully for nearly twenty years.
In 1999 I chose to become a volunteer police reservist, with the notorious serious and violent crime detective unit. During my nine years of service, I discovered that racist police members, nostalgic of the old Apartheid regime, were performing extra judicial killings, torture and tampering with crime scenes while hunting down and killing African suspects.
I started to monitor and document such activities as well as record videos and photos.
I blew the whistle in 2004 for the first time with an internal public disclosure, as well as with external public disclosures in 2008.
As a result of my public disclosures as well as my actions to reveal wrongdoing, corruption and racism within the South African police service, I suffered retaliation and I was forced into exile in 2008.
In 2012 I was contacted via the authorities to assist in an ongoing criminal investigation against the Cato manor unit.
After pending for nearly eight years, the charges were dropped due to political interference, corruption as well as an orchestrated fake news media attack on witnesses, government officials and whistleblowers.
Nearly every journalist, whistleblower, prosecutor, and police investigator, involved in the case against the Cato Manor unit had their reputation attacked, character assassinated, were intimidated or criminally charged!
It appears that Black lives do not matter in South Africa. Nobody cares about the victims, and the pain and suffering endured by their families. Very few members of the political or police leadership ever answered for their roles of killing and torturing Africans during and after Apartheid.
I am dedicating my life to advocacy for the support of whistleblowers, as well as exposing racism, corruption, and wrongdoing.
This is my story.