Programme News
19 August 2013
(News)
The plight of thousands of people from across Africa, dispossessed of their land to make way for commercial activity, is to be discussed in the Pan African Parliament.
The issue first came up at a two-day hearing at Constitution Hill, Johannesburg, during the continent's first ever land grab rights hearings on Thursday and Friday.
Highlighting the plight of hundreds of Limpopo people, Brand...
7 June 2013
(News)
In Riverlea, people have had their solar geysers for only two weeks but their shoddy workmanship have dashed many residents' expectations.
Standing in her tiny kitchen, Faridea Appolis points angrily at the holes in the roof. Pipes, wrapped in silver insulation, run down the yellow walls to her sink and bathroom.
"They just knocked holes in my roof for the geyser. There was no...
26 April 2013
(News)
Three rights groups are taking two state departments and DRD Gold to court to reveal information about the firm's re-mining operation in Riverlea.
The community was forcibly moved to the area in the 1960s, occupying land around the abandoned mine dump that towers above their houses. On a previous visit, the residents told the Mail & Guardian that the mine had been a minor problem in...
19 April 2013
(News)
It is a windless 35 degrees in the dusty village of Rockville, half an hour north of Pretoria. Yet every door and every window in the village is closed. All the residents are indoors. More astonishingly, there are no children in the street or playing in gardens. The children have been sent away.
"I sent my two children to Johannesburg because they were so sick here," says...
11 April 2013
(News)
TJ Makoene has spent most of his life building his house, investing in it bit by bit.
But everyday Makoene, a resident of Rockville, in the Temba township of Hammanskraal, is forced to live with the stench of sewage in the air, thanks to the sewerage plant less than 50m away from his home.
Makoene owns one of the 80 or so houses across the road from the Temba waste-water treatment plant...
10 April 2013
(News)
A sewerage plant supplying the community of Rockville, north of Pretoria, is leaking. But its reconstruction is being contested in court.
The community, through Lawyers for Human Rights, is in court because they say they were not consulted on the project and the plant began working before it had a water licence.
The current water plant was first built in 1983, when the community was still under...
12 October 2012
(Press release)
Today the Mokopane Interested and Affected Community Committee (“MIACC”) represented by Lawyers for Human Rights challenged an interim interdict of Ivanplat Resources against the entire community of Kgobudi (part of the Mokopane). Ivanplat obtained an interim order against the Kgobudi in May this year, interdicting and restraining any member of the Kgobudi community from entering an...
21 August 2012
(News)
Mining outfit African Nickel turned to the Pretoria High Court last week in an attempt to gag a Magaliesburg landowner "from spreading false allegations" to the media and the public about the mine's activities near the Magaliesberg protected area.
Thys van As, a member of the Landowners Association of Magaliesberg (Loam) earlier objected in the media to African Nickel being granted a...
31 July 2012
(Press release)
PRESS RELEASE - 31 JULY 2012
The Federation for a Sustainable Environment (FSE), Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) and the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) were shocked to be served yesterday with an application to appeal the order by the High Court requiring the Gert Sibande Municipality to provide basic water services to the Carolina community pending the outcome of an appeal of the main application...
17 July 2012
(Press release)
Joint Media Statement on Situation in Carolina issued by LAWYERS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, LEGAL RESOURCES CENTRE AND THE FEDERATION FOR A SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENT MEDIA STATEMENT - 17th July 2012
The Federation for a Sustainable Development and the Silobela Concerned Community, represented by the Legal Resources Centre and Lawyers for Human Rights respectively, yesterday opposed an...