Anti-xenophobia group wins access to detainees

GAUTENG Premier David Makhura has committed to facilitate a meeting between the People’s Coalition Against Xenophobia and the government’s interministerial committee on xenophobic violence next week.

The coalition includes Lawyers for Human Rights.

This was announced on Tuesday by lawyer Stephen Faulkner, who said the coalition wanted to use the meeting to convince the government to reconsider its controversial Operation Fiela.

The coalition won an important legal concession on Tuesday when the High Court in Johannesburg granted an order allowing it access to foreigners detained during government raids as part of the operation. Although Mr Makhura’s spokesman, Thabo Masebe, confirmed the premier’s commitment to help set up a meeting with the interministerial committee, he stressed that Operation Fiela was a national exercise.

The operation, during which at least 889 reportedly undocumented people have been arrested, has been described by officials as a mop-up exercise to weed out criminal elements and restore calm in areas where xenophobic violence has flared up in the past two months.

Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe, in explaining the operation’s objectives last month, said: "We intend to sweep our public places clean so that people can be and feel safe."

However, the coalition said yesterday that the operation had had the unintended consequence of legitimising xenophobia in poor communities and city centres, where most raids had been conducted, and worsened an already dire situation for foreign nationals.

The coalition said its lawyers had repeatedly been denied access to consult with detained migrants, most of whom had not been given an opportunity to speak to an attorney, despite a court order. They included those people detained on Friday at Johannesburg’s Central Methodist Church, as well as others arrested the same day.

The coalition would now be able to advise detainees on their legal status in SA and help them pursue claims against the government arising from the raids which led to the arrest of at least 889 migrants said to be undocumented.

"The operation shows no regard for human rights and is in violation of legislation and the way in which home affairs and police should act when deporting migrants," said Wayne Ncube from Lawyers for Human Rights.

"Operation Fiela has left us ambivalent ... I think we have to go back to the drawing board in terms of bringing new public relations on how we tell the rest of the continent whether we are xenophobic or not," said Jason Osuafor of the Africa Diaspora Forum.