All news items
22 August 2014
After Llewellyn Smith was brutally assaulted, stripped naked, electro-shocked and tortured in the Leeuwkop Max C prison showers last week, his wife Malanie brought an urgent application in the South Gauteng High Court requesting that her husband was granted permission to see a private medical practitioner, that he was x-rayed and permitted to lay charges with the SAPS.
About 20 other inmates also...
11 August 2014
Judy Manjoro (49) is a teacher, but when she fled Zimbabwe in 2005 during political violence and came to South Africa, she was forced to become a domestic worker because there was no other work available.
In the afternoons when she returned to her home in Yeoville, Johannesburg, she would gather the children of other refugees off the streets and give them lessons.
In 2011 she formalised this...
11 August 2014
Given a global platform to explain the successes of the ANC and his government, President Jacob Zuma took his chance at the National Press Club in Washington DC last week. He boasted South Africa’s fifth peace democratic elections, pointed to the rise in middle income earners, and the expansion of foreign companies entering South Africa. Inflation’s been tamed; the Johannesburg Stock...
8 August 2014
Two advocates who quit as evidence leaders of the arms deal commission two weeks ago have given a damning insight into the inner workings of the investigation.
The 15-page joint letter of resignation by advocates Barry Skinner SC and Carol Sibiya seems to back the view of most critics that the commission is nothing but a cover-up of corruption in the multibillion-rand deal.
Skinner and Sibiya say...
7 August 2014
That Parliament approved of the arms deal is a line that has been repeated over and over by government witnesses testifying at the Seriti commission of inquiry into the deal. But it is an assertion that is disputed, and that dispute might be formally put to the commission on Thursday in Pretoria.
At the heart of this dispute will be the testimony of Raenette Taljaard, a former parliamentarian for...
6 August 2014
That there is corruption in South African prisons is no secret – but the actual extent of it might never be known for sure.
A few recent incidents taken up in the media give us a hint – issues at Leeuhof Prison, in Vereeniging, Gauteng, which were revealed in June, were just one example. "Gangsters and wardens are still smuggling dagga, heroin and crack cocaine; criminals are...
6 August 2014
Three weeks after the Gauteng North High court ordered that a 12-year-old Somali girl be placed on a waiting list for heart surgery, she is still waiting for the operation.
There are 43 other children requiring similar surgery at Steve Biko Academic Hospital and the girl’s family is worried she may die while on the waiting list.
The girl, who cannot be named because she is a minor,...
5 August 2014
Ever wondered what it’s like to be caught up in the South African legal system, or wondered what a person accused of a crime, or their family, goes through while waiting for their case to be resolved? BHEKI SIMELANE spent a day at the Protea Magistrates Court. This is what he found.
Mapule Ntjangase, 31, White City
I’m here to support my younger brother but I cannot tell you what...
5 August 2014
The Wits Justice Project has recently released our latest booklet, ‘When perpetrator becomes victim: reports on torture in South Africa.’ The compilation features award-winning investigative journalism by our senior journalists Carolyn Raphaely and Ruth Hopkins and is a much needed expose on instances of torture being committed in present day South Africa.
Read the full compilation...
31 July 2014
ANALYSIS: A recurring line from those trying to dismiss allegations of corruption in the Arms Deal is: “Show us the evidence.”
During his testimony at the Seriti Commission two weeks ago, former president Mbeki took an opportunity to lash out at critics, saying: “For all of these years we have been saying, let this evidence be produced so that action can be taken.”...