LHR CHALLENGES UNLAWFUL DETENTION IN MUSINA

MEDIA RELEASE - 9 FEBRUARY 2009

LHR has lodged an urgent High Court application challenging the legality and conditions of the Soutpansberg Military Grounds detention centre in Musina. Further, the application challenges the blatant violation of the constitutional provision against the detention of children.

In contravention of the Immigration Act, the detention centre, commonly known as "SMG" is run and overseen by the Musina Police instead of the Department of Home Affairs (DHA).The Immigration Act requires that the Department of Home Affairs, and no other state organ, bear responsibility for verifying whether those arrested are in the country legally or not, and then detaining "illegal foreigners" pending their deportation.    In November 2008, DHA disclaimed oversight of SMG and withdrew its officers from the facility, the official reason being that the DHA could not continue to expose their officials to the unhygienic conditions at SMG, and could not be seen to condone keeping people in such a facility.

The appalling conditions at SMG, violate the standards set forth in the Constitution, the Immigration Act and international law, and pose serious dangers to health, safety and child welfare.

Those detained at SMG have never been charged with or convicted of a criminal act.  Many are recognized asylum seekers, legally present in South Africa, who have been haphazardly arrested by the military or police. 

The facility is a converted sports hall, enclosed in tin roofing with a make-shift barbed wire and zinc divide separating the men's from the women's area.   Detainees, including women with infants and unaccompanied children as young as twelve, sleep on the concrete floor without adequate blankets or bedding.  Meals consist of little more than bread and water and are distributed two times per day, with no provision made for pregnant or breastfeeding women.  Until the recent introduction of mobile toilets, there were no toilets within the detention area and as a result detainees were forced to urinate and / or defecate on the floor, in full view of all other detainees.

Children at SMG are held with and under the same conditions as adults, creating a perilous danger to their health and well-being.

The detention of these children is manifestly unlawful.  Children are protected under section 28 of the Constitution, the Children's Act and in the Immigration Act, which explicitly prohibit the detention of  minors.  The Children's Act places an obligation on all organs of state to ensure the protection of children, foreign or South African.  Instead of referring unaccompanied minors to a social worker, the unaccompanied children are arrested, detained at SMG and often deported back to their country alone, where many face the risk of extreme violence should they undertake the treacherous journey back across the border.

LHR is today asking the Pretoria High Court to order the Department of Home Affairs to designate SMG as a detention facility under the Immigration Act and improve the procedures and conditions to comply with its legal obligations, or to close the facility down within one month.

For more information please contact David Cote at david [at] lhr [dot] org [dot] za or 012 320 2943.