Programme News
18 July 2014
(News)
The brother of a 12-year-old refugee Somali girl who is being refused life-saving surgery will turn to the North Gauteng High Court for an urgent order forcing the health authorities to give her the heart operation she desperately needs.
The girl cannot be operated on because she has no refugee documents, or R250 000.
The two cannot be identified because the girl is a minor.
Lawyers for...
18 July 2014
(News)
No heart surgery for ailing girl
The 10-day journey from war-torn Somalia to South Africa was tough, but it was the start of a better life for the 12-year-old.
Or so she thought.
The girl, whose unemployed and widowed mother remains in Mogadishu, planned to live with her brother in Pretoria, where he runs a small shop.
But just a day after she arrived in the country on July 4, she collapsed and...
17 July 2014
(Press release)
Lawyers for Human Rights is disappointed by the ruling of the Mbabane High Court in Swaziland that has found prominent Swazi human rights lawyer Thulani Maseko and editor-in-chief of The Nation magazine, Bhekithemba Makhubu guilty of contempt of court.
The judgment marks a worrying development in the right to freedom of speech of journalists and activists. Sentencing in the case has also been...
17 July 2014
(News)
“First of all one has to ask the question: is he complicit? My answer [is stated] clearly in my book and in the statements that I have made subsequently, I would suggest yes.” – Andrew Feinstein.
It is probably not an unfair assumption that, in 1999 when the arms deal was signed under his watch, it would have been unthinkable to then-president Thabo Mbeki that he would be...
17 July 2014
(News)
Justice and Correctional Services Minister Mike Masutha wants to stop sending people convicted of petty crimes to jail in a bid to eliminate overcrowding.
Masutha said his newly merged department would encourage the courts to use the diversion of sentences programme instead of increasing the prison population.
In terms of the programme, a person found guilty of shoplifting would be sentenced to...
17 July 2014
(News)
Video conferencing will be used to connect victims of crime to all 53 Correctional Supervision and Parole offices in South Africa to allow them to become part of parole hearings.
Parole hearings hit the headlines last week when apartheid-era death squad commander Eugene de Kock was denied parole because families of victims had not been consulted.
Justice and Correctional Services Minister Michael...
16 July 2014
(Press release)
Lawyers for Human Rights has launched an urgent application in the North Gauteng High Court seeking life-saving medical treatment for a 12-year-old Somali girl.
The matter will be heard on Friday, 18 July 2014, at 10am.
She arrived in South Africa on 4 July as an asylum-seeker with the intention of applying for refugee status after fleeing conflict in Somalia. Unfortunately, before being able to...
15 July 2014
(News)
The controversial Red Ants Security Services will now have to give 48 hours notice before undertaking evictions, as well as check the validity of court orders authorising the removal of residents from informal settlements.
This is according to Gauteng Human Settlements MEC Jacob Mamabolo, who signed a memorandum of understanding with the private security services provider on Monday. The...
11 July 2014
(Press release)
Lawyers for Human Rights is appalled by the arrest of over 100 community healthcare workers and Treatment Action Campaign members during the start of a peaceful campaign of civil disobedience in the Free State to demand that Health MEC Benny Malakoane be removed from his position given the desperate state of the health system in that province.
More concerning is the violence shown by SAPS during...
11 July 2014
(News)
Walk down most streets in Johannesburg and you will hear accents and languages from across this vast African continent.
Builders by the roadside waiting for work chatter away in the sweet sing-song rhythm of African Portuguese, waiters stand and gossip between orders employing the rolling Rs and whistles that mark out Shona, a language of Zimbabwe and southern Zambia.
Congolese, Somalis,...