All news items
16 February 2013
South Africa is experiencing a major shift in its approach to asylum-seekers and refugees, Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) said on Friday.
“The changes amount to a substantial reduction of asylum-seeker and refugee protection culminating in increased danger of sending people back to face persecution,” LHR said in a statement.
“Since early 2011, these shifts have resulted in group...
13 February 2013
His routine and conviction never wavered. He’d shave the person’s head, lay his hand on the bald pate and ask for God’s forgiveness for the condemned. Then, he’d strap the person into Virginia’s electric chair.
Jerry Givens was the state’s chief executioner for 17 years – at a time when the commonwealth put more people to death than any state...
13 February 2013
Foreign nationals will no longer be able to own land in South Africa once government’s land policy is finalised and passed into law, Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti said on Tuesday.
"All people who are foreign nationals will not own land, but will lease land on a long-term basis," he said.
Nkwinti was responding to a question during a "dialogue" with farm workers in...
7 February 2013
On the streets of inner-city Johannesburg, refugees and asylum-seekers are participants in a thriving informal economy, plying their trade as tailors, barbers and street vendors.
South Africa’s laissez-faire policy towards its refugee population means they have little choice but to fall back on their own skills and creativity to survive. And despite the many challenges they face - from...
31 January 2013
Frederik Ngubane was born in South Africa to South African parents 22 years ago but, lacking any proof of his origins or nationality, he lives a shadowy, marginal existence. He cannot travel, study or secure formal employment and has lost count of how many times he has been arrested for being undocumented.
Not considered a national by South Africa or by Kenya or Uganda - the two countries where...
28 January 2013
Home Affairs Minister Naledi Pandor plans urgently to talk to ambassadors in a bid to resolve problems of illegal immigrants who are not claimed by their country’s representatives, saying people end up staying at the Lindela repatriation facility in Krugersdorp for months.
There have been incidents where illegal immigrants stayed for more than the legally permitted 120 days at the...
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25 January 2013
Home Affairs Minister Naledi Pandor has addressed the media on repeated allegations surrounding unlawful detentions, human rights abuses and access to services for foreign nationals after her visit to the Lindela repatriation centre in Krugersdorp on Friday.
Pandor also spoke on the situation of women being separated from their children once arrested for being in South Africa illegally. A Special...
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24 January 2013
More than 20 refugees' children in Cape Town could not be enrolled in schools early this year due to the lack of asylum documents. The refugees have approached several schools in Western Cape but were turned down.
Williams Phiri stays in Capricorn; he has three children aged six, twelve and sixteen. In 2012 his children were not able to attend school because they lacked permits. Phiri has...
22 January 2013
The South African Citizenship Amendment Act of 2010 came into effect on 1 January this year.
This was revealed in a proclamation published in Government Gazette 36054.
The bill was adopted by the national assembly in October 2010 and signed into law in December of that year.
The legislation ensures that a child born to a South African parent inside or outside the country is a South African...
18 January 2013
Trade union federation Cosatu and refugee lobby group People Against Suffering, Oppression and Poverty (Passop) have renewed their call to the Department of Home Affairs to provide amnesty to immigrants caught up in the farmworker strike in the Western Cape.
In a joint statement yesterday the two organisations accused Home Affairs Minister Naledi Pandor of failing to “respond to our...