In the media
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25 April 2013
Special Assignment
Special Assignment aired several LHR videos during its programme on 25 April 2013.
A common sight for mining communities -- the faces seldom seen behind the effects of mining.
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24 April 2013
The New Age
Lawyers for Human Rights has claimed that the Department of Home Affairs' decision to close the refugee reception offices in metropolitan areas and opening offices in remote areas along South Africa's borders, will effectively create refugee camps.
LHR and the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University's refugee rights centre have challenged the closure of the Port Elizabeth RRO.
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24 April 2013
IRIN News
Most asylum seekers arrive in host countries with no evidence to prove they have fled persecution. This means the success of their applications for refugee status depends largely on whether their stories are believed. But the credibility of asylum seekers is increasingly being called into question, particularly in countries that receive large numbers of asylum claims.
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20 April 2013
ENCA online
Judgment has been reserved in the Eastern Cape High Court in a battle between Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) and the Home Affairs Department.
This concerns a decision by the director general of Home Affairs to close a Refugee Reception Office (RRO) in Port Elizabeth.
LHR has approached the court to have the office reopened after it was closed in October 2011. The lobby group has argued that the decision to close it was unreasonable, irrational and materially affected by irrelevant considerations.
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19 April 2013
Mail & Guardian
It is a windless 35 degrees in the dusty village of Rockville, half an hour north of Pretoria. Yet every door and every window in the village is closed. All the residents are indoors. More astonishingly, there are no children in the street or playing in gardens. The children have been sent away.
"I sent my two children to Johannesburg because they were so sick here," says Themba Mkhize, an unemployed resident of the 2 000-strong community. "They would always rub their eyes and cough and have diarrhoea."
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19 April 2013
The New Age
The Port Elizabeth High Court would on Friday hear an application for review brought by the Somali Association of South Africa Eastern Cape and the Project For Conflict Resolution and Development against the Minister of Home Affairs and three of her officials.
The civil society organizations through Lawyers for Human Rights asked the court to review a decision made by the director general of the department to close a Refugee Reception Office (RRO) in Port Elizabeth.
The closure took effect from October 21, 2011, for new applicants for asylum.
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18 April 2013
EnCA online
The Home Affairs Ministry is set to be hauled before the Eastern Cape High Court tomorrow over the closure of the Port Elizabeth Refugee Reception Office.
"Our argument includes that there was no consultation with the public (when closing the office), there was no attempt to engage with asylum seekers and refugees in Port Elizabeth or organisations representing them,” said head of Lawyers for Human Rights’ Strategic Litigation Unit, David Cote.
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15 April 2013
The New Age
The battle between the city of Tshwane and the evicted residents of the Schubart Park flats complex is far from over.
The committee representing the residents has threatened to initiate another legal challenge against the council.
They accused the council of using delaying tactics instead of honouring the Constitutional Court’s ruling that the council provide residents with alternative accommodation.
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11 April 2013
The Times
TJ Mokoene has spent most of his life building his house, investing in it bit by bit.
But everyday Mokoene, a resident of Rockville, in the Temba township of Hammanskraal, is forced to live with the stench of sewage in the air, thanks to the sewerage plant less than 50m away from his home.
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10 April 2013
The Star
For the past 30 years, Karl Ammann shot his world famous wildlife photography on a Nikon. At the weekend he resorted to covertly snapping a picture with his BlackBerry in order to capture evidence of his dent ion and deportation from OR Tambo International Airport.
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