All news items
14 April 2015
South Africa’s government is struggling to contain a flare up of attacks against foreigners in the port city of Durban that’s left at least five people dead and forced more than 1,000 immigrants to flee their homes.
Police battled with groups of foreigners on the streets of Durban’s city center on Tuesday as they burned tires and threw stones in protest after facing attacks from...
13 April 2015
LHR is dispirited by the call for the establishment of refugee camps by ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe at the weekend.
What makes Mantashe’s comments all the more worrying is its surfacing mere days after Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba publicly denounced xenophobic and loaded statements from political leaders amid ongoing violence and intolerance. The rationalisation that these...
13 April 2015
Police treatment of foreigners slammedLawyers for Human Rights (LHR) issued a stern condemnation on Thursday over the treatment of foreign nationals at the hands of police in Durban.
On Wednesday, a group of over 300 foreign nationals gathered in central Durban for an organised march to protest a spate of xenophobic attacks.
While permission for the march had been granted, it was withdrawn as the...
11 April 2015
After a fresh outbreak of xenophobic attacks in Umlazi on Friday, following a week in which four people have died in the greater Durban area, Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba has urged leaders to refrain from making statements that instigate or condone attacks on foreigners.
Addressing displaced foreign nationals at the Westcliff Sports Ground in Chatsworth, Gigaba appealed to all leaders to...
9 April 2015
The unlawful detention of foreign nationals at the infamous Lindela Repatriation Centre continues despite a court order.
The court order states Home Affairs must take “all steps reasonably necessary or appropriate” to ensure that no person is detained for longer than 30 days without a warrant. The Legal Resources Centre said they are deeply concerned by the “flagrant disregard...
9 April 2015
Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) is challenging the constitutionality of sections of the Immigration Act which do not make provision for detainees to be brought before court in person to challenge the lawfulness of their detention.
LHR’s head of detention monitoring, Lesirela Letsebe, said in an affidavit before the High Court in Pretoria that hundreds of foreigners were unlawfully held at...
9 April 2015
Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) has applied for sections of the Immigration Act to be declared unconstitutional because they deny immigration detainees the right to be brought before court to challenge the lawfulness of their detention.
Judge Billy Mothle yesterday postponed the application indefinitely in the North Gauteng High Court, allowing the department of home affairs to file opposing...
9 April 2015
Freedom of movement is a critically important refugee right, and nearly all others are contingent upon it. Without freedom of movement, rights to employment, education, legal access, identity papers, travel documents, naturalisation, and many other fundamental entitlements are severely curtailed, if not completely blocked. This right is repeatedly articulated in international law, reiterated in...
8 April 2015
More than 40 years after being evicted from their land and 17 years of court battles, the Baphiring community – with the help of Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) – is returning to their home in North West.
The Baphiring case sets a precedent of how communities should be settled on land restored to them through restitution.
The community, made up of more than 400 families, lived on the...
2 April 2015
South Africa is in the grips of increasingly aggressive behaviour from our police and xenophobic attitudes from government officials that have led to the dehumanisation and unfair targeting of our country’s most vulnerable.
In the 2013/14 reporting period alone, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate registered complaints of 234 deaths of suspects while in police custody, 390...