All Press Releases
1 December 2009
The residents of the Mamelodi hostel won a victory in the North Gauteng High Court today where the court confirmed the interim order issued on 18 November 2009 and found that the attempted demolition and the removal of the roof from the Mamelodi Hostel unlawful and ordered the Tshwane municipality to resurrect the roof.
On 15 and 16 November 2009, the municipality began to demolish...
26 November 2009
Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) will appear today in the North Gauteng High Court to seek an order of contempt of court against officials from the Tshwane municipality who inhumanely and with a wanton disregard for the law, allowed the destruction of the hostel in Mamelodi.
Over the weekend of 14 and 15 November 2009, municipal officials began the destruction of the Mamelodi hostel...
4 November 2009
In the late hours of 3 July 2009, some 350 destitute and homeless people were arrested for “loitering” in central Johannesburg. As they had nowhere else to go, they had been sleeping in the vicinity of the Central Methodist Mission (“the Church”). As part of “Operation Chachamela”, which effectively targets the destitute and homeless in...
28 July 2009
Lawyers for Human Rights has been actively monitoring the situation in Balfour and is gravely concerned by the indiscriminate violence which occurred last week in that community. Foreign nationals were particularly targeted by some members of the community. LHR has, however, also learned of widespread violence by police against protesters as well as against community members not involved in the...
16 July 2009
The South Gauteng High Court today ruled that the deportation of an asylum seeker by the Department of Home Affairs was unlawful, unconstitutional, and invalid, and ordered the Department to pay for and facilitate his return to South Africa. The asylum seeker, whose name has been withheld for security reasons, was unlawfully deported on 10 May, 2009—two days before he was to appear in court to...
10 July 2009
The residents of the Mamelodi Hostels will be marching on the Union Buildings in Pretoria on Saturday, 11 July 2009.
The hostels, which accommodate roughly 10 000 people were built by the apartheid government to provide housing to the mostly male migrant workers. The residents living in these hostels have done so for many years and form a distinct community with strong social ties.
In terms...
6 July 2009
Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR), the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) and the AIDS Law Project (ALP) today welcomed a decision by the State Prosecutor at the Johannesburg Magistrates Court to withdraw charges of loitering against over 350 homeless people who were arrested on Friday night in the vicinity of the Central Methodist Church.The majority of those who were arrested are Zimbabwean refugees,...
5 July 2009
We welcome the invitation by Community Safety MEC, Khabisi Mosunkutu, to discuss our concerns regarding the arrest of hundreds of destitute people for sleeping outside the Central Methodist Church and in the streets of Johannesburg shortly before midnight on Friday. We will be seeking a meeting with the MEC and other relevant officials in the coming days.At present, almost all of those arrested...
19 June 2009
WORLD REFUGEE DAY
Despite South Africa's international and domestic obligations to provide protection to refugees and asylum seekers, the Department of Home Affairs uses detention as the primary tool for immigration enforcement, including detaining and deporting asylum seekers to countries where they face persecution.
Most detained asylum seekers are held at the Lindela...
11 June 2009
Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) will ask the South Gauteng High Court today (Friday) for the return of a Congolese asylum seeker who was unlawfully deported by the Department of Home Affairs from South Africa last month. LHR had previously brought an urgent application on his behalf to the court for his release from the Lindela Detention Facility only to be informed at court that he had been...