Programme News
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,...
11 July 2014
(News)
In South Africa, Eugene de Kock, an apartheid-era police colonel known as "Prime Evil", has been refused parole.
De Kock was the head of a police death squad targeting anti-apartheid activists.
Justice Minister Michael Masutha says a key reason why De Kock cannot be paroled is because the families of the victims were not consulted.
That may be the case, says Laywers for Human Rights, a...
7 July 2014
(News)
A recent court case highlights the necessity of aligning South Africa’s refugee policy and practice with education law to ensure the removal of obstacles to an education for asylum-seeking children in South Africa.
Lawyers for Human Rights and the Centre for Child Law recently brought an application to address the plight of eight minor children who fled the war-torn Democratic...
4 July 2014
(News)
Former President Thabo Mbeki will appear before the arms deal inquiry in two weeks.
Arms Procurement Commission spokesman William Baloyi said that Mbeki would give evidence on July 17.
“The president was not subpoenaed. The president offered to assist the commission,” said Baloyi.
The commission is holding public hearings in Pretoria on the controversial 1999 arms deal.
“...
3 July 2014
(News)
NEWS ANALYSIS
During phase two of the arms procurement commission’s (APC’s) public hearings, which will begin on July 21, who makes the allegations will prove to be just as important as the allegations themselves.
Intentionally or not, by starting phase two of the inquiry with evidence by the so-called “critics” of the arms deal, it sets them up as complainants in the...
2 July 2014
(News)
Even the most apathetic South African could rattle off a couple of coherent sentences on the arms deal masquerading as the War on Terror when pressed to do so over dinner.
And anyone with half an eye on world developments could add something intelligible about the arming and disarming of Muammar Gaddafi, and the merciless war in Libya.
It seems trite to say these arms deals were highly publicised...
23 June 2014
(News)
Treated like scum
As the world celebrated Refugee Day last week , security guards - employed by the Department of Home Affairs - sjambokked and pepper- sprayed asylum-seekers in Marabastad.
The department has stopped refugee reception offices in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth from registering new asylum claims. The only offices that take on new claims are in Marabastad, Durban, Musina...
19 June 2014
(News)
Lawyers want access to arms deal docs
Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) needs access to key evidence in the Seriti Commission of Inquiry to help the commission, it said on Wednesday.
“It is important to note that these documents are vital in enabling us to prepare properly to give our evidence during phase II of the hearings, expected to begin in July,” LHR said in a statement.
“...
18 June 2014
(Press release)
Andrew Feinstein, Paul Holden and Hennie van Vuuren, represented by Lawyers for Human Rights, have responded to Judge Willie Seriti’s request for a detailed list of documents and evidence that has, so far, not been delivered by the Arms Procurement Commission despite numerous appeals.
Repeated requests for documents
During the cross-examination of former finance minister Trevor Manuel on...