Programme News
4 March 2013
(News)
Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) on Friday added its voice in calling for an urgent investigation by the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) into the death of Mozambican national Mido Macia — allegedly due to police brutality after being dragged behind a police vehicle and assaulted while in detention.
The taxi driver was found dead...
1 March 2013
(Press release)
Lawyers for Human Rights has noted the death of Mozambican national Mido Macia - allegedly due to police brutality after being dragged behind a police vehicle and assaulted while in detention - with deep concern and calls for an urgent investigation by SAPS and the Independent Police Investigative Directorate into the matter.
The taxi driver was later found dead in the holding cells of the...
28 February 2013
(News)
Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) said on Wednesday its to challenge the Department of Home Affairs’ closing of the Port Elizabeth refugee reception office would appear before the Eastern Cape High Court on Thursday.
LHR teamed up with the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University’s Refugee Rights Centre in representing the Somali Association of South Africa and the Project for Conflict...
19 February 2013
(News)
Refugees and asylum seekers receive substantially less protection from the government than they used to when the asylum system was first established in the 1990s. This is claimed by Lawyers for Human Rights and the African Centre for Migration and Society, in a new report published last week.
The report, which monitors trends over the past two years, says South Africa has experienced a de facto...
18 February 2013
(News)
Tighter control over immigration — as has been suggested by African National Congress (ANC) policy adopted at the Mangaung conference in December last year — will not solve South Africa’s concerns over jobs and crime, but will make these problems worse, according to refugee rights groups and researchers.
A range of civil society organisations this week made presentations to...
13 February 2013
(News)
His routine and conviction never wavered. He’d shave the person’s head, lay his hand on the bald pate and ask for God’s forgiveness for the condemned. Then, he’d strap the person into Virginia’s electric chair.
Jerry Givens was the state’s chief executioner for 17 years – at a time when the commonwealth put more people to death than any state...
28 January 2013
(Press release)
South Africa has again been gripped by images of violence, anger and looting in the wake of a decision by Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Richard Baloyi and the Municipal Demarcation Board to merge two municipalities near Sasolburg in the Free State. By Thursday, four people had been reportedly killed and many more displaced after a week of violent protest against the...
25 January 2013
(Press release)
Lawyers for Human Rights is disappointed by statements made by Home Affairs Minister Naledi Pandor following today’s visit to the Lindela holding facility for immigration detention.
7 January 2013
(News)
As thousands of Zimbabweans are deported from South Africa, hundreds of migrant children awaiting deportation are being held in appalling conditions in detention facilities near Johannesburg and Musina, despite calls from legal and medical human rights groups to improve conditions.
Immigration authorities say about 43 000 Zimbabweans were deported from South Africa in 2012.
Among the deportees...
12 December 2012
(News)
The South African Police Services (SAPS) is facing criticism for using tear gas to control a restless group of travellers at the border with Zimbabwe, amid warnings that the crackdown on cross border migration between the two countries is intensifying.
SAPS members at the Beitbridge border fired tear gas last Friday morning where queues of mainly Zimbabwean citizens had been waiting several hours...