HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANISATIONS WELCOME RELEASE OF HOMELESS PEOPLE AND REFUGEES

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, and included a number of women, children and people who were seriously ill. Amongst them were a 58 year old South African women who is blind and deaf, a South African man suffering from acute psychosis, a pregnant woman and over 10 children. In addition several people were arrested who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time - indicating again the arbitrariness of the arrests and the police operation.

Over the weekend Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) struggled to ensure that those in need received proper medical attention, and eventually decided to pay admission of guilt fines in order to get seven people out of police cells and into medical care.

Several of those arrested also complained of police brutality and theft during the arrests.

The LHR, LRC and ALP intervened in order to try protect homeless people from arbitrary police actions. We are concerned that these arrests appear to be part of a campaign to drive homeless people out of the city centre, and particularly away from the Johannesburg High Court. They took place regardless of bona fide efforts that are ongoing to try to relieve the homeless crisis in the inner city and to find shelters are care for people in desperate need.

LHR, LRC and the ALP were prepared to represent the homeless and refugees in court. However, the prosecutor decided not to proceed with the charges because of the unprocedural manner in which the arrests were effected. A major concern of the prosecutor appeared to be uncertainty regarding the fate of those arrested once they were released. However, this is a matter that the government is legally and morally bound to urgently address and not a reason for keeping hundreds of people in prison.

Dropping the spurious charges of loitering strengthens our conviction that homeless people are being targeted just because they are homeless and vulnerable.

We welcome efforts that have been made by the City of Johannesburg to provide transit accommodation particularly to the most vulnerable, and the intention to begin to house refugees by the weekend. However we call on the Gauteng Provincial Government and the City of Johannesburg to work with this community to develop a sustainable solution that respects the rights of people in this desperate situation.

In particular we call on the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police and the SAPS to make a firm commitment not to carry out any further arrests of people whose only crime is to be homeless and stateless.

6 July 2009

Issued jointly by:

THE LEGAL RESOURCES CENTRE

LAWYERS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

THE AIDS LAW PROJECT

For further information, please contact:

LEGAL RESOURCES CENTRE

Jason Brickhill

0731914787

jasonb [at] lrc [dot] org [dot] za

LAWYERS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Jacob van Garderen

0828203960

jacob [at] lhr [dot] org [dot] za

AIDS LAW PROJECT

Mark Heywood

0836348806

heywoodm [at] alp [dot] org [dot] za