Programme News
22 December 2011
(News)
DOCUMENT - SOUTH AFRICA: CALL FOR SOUTH AFRICA TO FULFIL ITS INTERNATIONAL AND DOMESTIC OBLIGATIONS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE RIGHTS OF REFUGEES AND ASYLUM SEEKERS
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
PUBLIC STATEMENT
Index: AFR 53/007/2011
20 December 2011
Amnesty International welcomes the recent rulings in the South African High Court affecting the rights of refugees and asylum-seekers. The North...
10 December 2011
(News)
REFUGEE lobby groups were in court yesterday challenging what they claimed was a decision by the Department of Home Affairs not to open a new refugee reception office in Johannesburg, after the Crown Mines office was closed by a court order. Yesterday’s case may be the first in a series of challenges on refugee reception offices. Accessibility to these offices is essential for the rights of...
1 December 2011
(News)
IN A strongly worded judgment, the Supreme Court of Appeal has affirmed the principles governing legal protection for asylum seekers in SA and censured a high court acting judge for flouting the "fundamental rules of litigation". While the government has often come in for heavy criticism by the courts for how it handles immigrants and asylum seekers, it is unusual for a judge to...
10 October 2011
(News)
At a glance, Jabulani Sibanda is living the South African dream. At 31, he is married with two beautiful children, and has a car, a house and his own business.
But Sibanda doesn't really own much of his life because he is stateless. Despite years of trying to obtain legal documents of his citizenship and residency status, he remains undocumented. Without them, he is resigned to living...
6 October 2011
(News)
Luwizhi has been on a paper chase for the last four years – not as a student pursuing higher education, but as someone seeking documents while bouncing between being an asylum-seeker, migrant worker and stateless person.
Luwizhi was born in 1975 to
a Zambian father and a
Malawian mother who had
met and married in
Zimbabwe as migrant
workers decades ago. He
grew up in Zimbabwe and
had...
5 October 2011
(Press release)
Lawyers for Human Rights is disappointed with today’s decision by the Constitutional Court to dismiss leave to appeal on behalf of the residents of the Schubart Park flats in Pretoria. As hundreds of families struggle to secure emergency accommodation and the City of Tshwane continues to remove the residents’ belongings in the absence of any Court order or legal mechanism...
27 September 2011
(News)
At a time when the country was known as the “breadbasket of Africa”, hundreds of thousands of persons migrated to Zimbabwe, mostly as farm labourers from neighboring countries in Southern Africa. In the initial blush of post-independence, the Zimbabwean Constitution of 1983 acknowledged this migrant population by allowing citizenship to flow from birth on the territory to children...
23 September 2011
(Press release)
LAWYERS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS PRESS RELEASE
23 SEPTEMBER 2011
Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) brought an urgent High Court application last night (Thursday 22 September 2011) on behalf of the residents of the Schubart Park B Building in the Pretoria city centre. The residents had been removed from the building after fires were lit during a protest against the lack of water and electricity for the past...
23 September 2011
(News)
SA MAY not extradite suspects to a country where they might face the death penalty unless that country has given an assurance that they would not be sentenced to death, a court held yesterday. The full bench judgment of the South Gauteng High Court is a strong affirmation of the constitutional right to life and emphasises that preserving good relations with other states cannot come...
21 September 2011
(News)
by Kaajal Ramjathan-Keogh
AMERICAN immigration policy under the Obama administration has taken a pragmatic and progressive turn to halt deportation proceedings against undocumented migrants who pose no threat to public safety. An editorial in The New York Times comments that the White House has taken a large step towards a more sensible and lawful policy on illegal immigration. The US...