All news items
7 September 2015
Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) said on Friday that Pilanesberg Platinum Mine “will immediately halt its activities on a portion of land on Wilgespruit” while an ownership dispute is being reolved.
This comes‚ LHR said in a statement‚ after the parties had “reached a settlement”‚ which will also entail perimeter fencing remaining intact‚ “but...
7 September 2015
Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) said on Friday that Pilanesberg Platinum Mine "will immediately halt its activities on a portion of land on Wilgespruit" while an ownership dispute is being resolved.
This came after the parties had "reached a settlement"‚ which would also entail perimeter fencing remaining intact‚ "but gates will be opened to allow freedom of...
7 September 2015
The people of the Lesethleng Village paid for their land and are the rightful‚ lawful owners and should be consulted with as such.
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Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) said that Pilanesberg Platinum Mine “will immediately halt its activities on a portion of land on Wilgespruit” while an ownership dispute is being reolved.
This comes‚ LHR said in a statement‚ after the...
4 September 2015
Constitutional Court judge Edwin Cameron and his law clerks have published a scathing report of Pollsmoor Prison after visiting the remand centre — where awaiting trial prisoners are kept — and the women's centre on 23 April. Some of their findings are consistent with those reported by GroundUp in May.
"Justice Cameron and his law clerks were deeply shocked by what they...
4 September 2015
The Mahikeng High Court in the North West has ordered Pilanesberg Platinum Mine to halt operations on the Wilgerspruit farm near Sun City. This follows an agreement between lawyers representing the mine and those representing the Lesetlheng Community.
The community wants the mine to halt all its activities and restore possession of the farm to it. Lesethleng community bought Wilgerspruit in 1919...
3 September 2015
Almost two years after the M&G published evidence of prisoners being brutalised at the Mangaung prison, the corrections department has yet to finalise its investigation.
On a cold winter day in 2005, inmate Isaac Nelani asked wardens at Mangaung prison, run by British security firm G4S, for an extra blanket to keep him warm. The prison walls emitted a chill that crept into his joints and...
2 September 2015
On April 15 of this year, Themba Maphosa awoke to news that five immigrants had been killed by South African gangs the previous night in Durban. A month earlier, the Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini shouted at a rally that "foreigners must pack their bags and go home." A wave of violence soon engulfed the country. South Africans remembered similar violence in the country in 2008 when...
2 September 2015
Human rights lawyers have lodged an urgent application on behalf of a community in the North West to stop all mining operations by the Pilanesberg Platinum Mines on Wilgespruit 2JQ farms.
Respondents in the application are Pilanesberg Platinum Mines, Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform Gugile Nkwinti, and Minister of Mineral Resources Ngoako Ramatlhodi. The Bakgatla-Ba-Kgafela...
2 September 2015
THERE is a fight in our rural areas for democracy and economic fairness. But, because those who are fighting it are not the sort of people whose rights matter in the suburbs, few of us know about it.
How about this for an event to catch the imagination of commentators and journalists — of everyone in the national debate? A group of property owners are denied what is rightfully theirs by an...
1 September 2015
Another rural community is poised to mount a court battle for land rights against a mining company this week.
Wilgespruit farm in North West, on which Pilanesberg Platinum Mine operates, is at the centre of the dispute that began in 2008. Lawyers for Human Rights, representing the Lesetlheng village community, will on Thursday approach the North West High Court to argue that the mine’s...