All news items
22 July 2015
WERE it not for municipal by-laws, the area outside the Marabastad refugee reception centre run by the Department of Home Affairs could easily become a tent city akin to a makeshift refugee camp.
Marabastad is one of the centres where refugees have to go to secure the necessary documentation to remain legally in SA. It has been identified in a report by Lawyers for Human Rights and the African...
22 July 2015
ALMOST a third of the people who have to deal with SA’s refugee reception offices have been asked for bribes, a new report suggests.
It details the extent of corruption in the refugee-and asylum-seeking process and concludes that corruption in this area is "very serious".
The report, to be released on Wednesday by Lawyers for Human Rights and the African Centre for Migration and...
22 July 2015
A report on corruption levels in South Africa’s asylum-seeking system, called Queue Here for Corruption, has found that almost one-third of refugees have experienced corruption at a refugee reception office. But it doesn’t begin there: the report finds that refugees are at the mercy of corrupt officials from the second they enter South Africa, a trend that continues as they attempt to...
21 July 2015
Allegations of beating and electrocution of prisoners in North West has sparked calls for torture charges to be laid against prison authorities.
The alleged assaults are being investigated by human rights lawyers, the Wits Justice Project, police and the Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Services.
Inmates at the Losperfontein prison outside Brits were allegedly beaten with batons, doused in...
18 July 2015
The conviction and subsequent 15-month incarceration of two men may have resulted in something good as the world will be watching what happens in Swaziland when it comes to the rule of law.
“I think our case in a way helped Swaziland to fix itself. Politicians may now be reluctant to phone judges and making deals with them at the risk of us reminding them what happened,” Bheki Makhubu...
18 July 2015
By relocating the so-called Plastic View informal settlement to a new plot alongside Garsfontein Road, east of the Woodlands Boulevard, the City of Tshwane will simply create another undesirable element for residents to put up with.
This is according to residents of the Pretoria east suburbs of Woodlands, Garsfontein, Moreleta Park and Mooikloof, who expressed concerns about the proposed...
17 July 2015
“I will go back and continue to write without fear or favour… Not because I am a hero, but because that is the right thing to do.”
These were the words of Bheki Makhubu, editor of The Nation magazine in Swaziland, following his recent release from prison.
On Thursday night Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) welcomed back the recently released Swazi human rights lawyer Thulani...
17 July 2015
An imprisoned rapist has been sentenced to 10 more years in jail for another three rapes‚ but he may not spend any more time behind bars in the end.
Magistrate Hleziphe Nkasibe said in the Randburg Magistrate’s Court in Johannesburg on Thursday that the sentence was sufficient in serving the purposes of retribution and rehabilitation.
Nkasibe was sentencing Jacob Mokoele‚ 35...
13 July 2015
Although the Department of Home Affairs claimed new visa regulations were needed to protect tens of thousands of children who were trafficked in South Africa, it now appears it was a gross exaggeration.
Home Affairs has for some time quoted a figure of 30,000 children being trafficked in or through South Africa annually to justify the draconian new visa regulations, which have the tourism...
10 July 2015
The High Court in Pretoria has ruled that foreign children who enter South Africa with a relative who qualifies as an asylum seeker should be included as a dependent.
The ruling was made on Thursday, said Zita Hansungule of the Centre for Child Law in a statement.
"This gives the child immediate protection and ensures that they are not separated from people with whom they have a relationship...