In the media
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11 July 2014
Radio France Internationale
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 South African NGO, but it's not De Kock's fault.
RFI's Michel Arseneault @miko75011 reached the head of their penal reform programme, Clare Ballard.
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8 July 2014
Times Live
After a six-year legal battle, a girl born in South Africa to Cuban parents has a country she can call home.
Yesterday, the girl's mother said she was able to sleep again after the Pretoria High Court last week ruled that her daughter was a South African citizen, and that the Department of Home Affairs had acted unlawfully by not registering her as such.
The Cape Town family - with the help of nonprofit organisation Lawyers for Human Rights - went to court after both South Africa and Cuba refused the child citizenship.
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7 July 2014
Mail & Guardian
During phase two of the arms deal public hearings, who makes the allegations will prove to be just as important as the allegations themselves.
Intentionally or not, starting phase two of the Arms Procurement Commission’s inquiry on July 21 with evidence by the so-called “critics” of the arms deal will set them up as complainants in the matter.
Phase two will deal with the fraud and corruption allegations that continue to plague the R70-billion arms deal, 15 years after it was signed.
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7 July 2014
Mail & Guardian
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 Republic Congo (DRC) and who have subsequently been struggling to gain access to the South African public schooling system.
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7 July 2014
The Daily Vox
Last week Frederick Ngubane’s application for citizenship was denied by the Department of Home Affairs. He remains in South Africa but lives as a stateless person. He told AAISHA DADI PATEL his story.
I like to practise playing the piano at St Albans Cathedral down the road. They know me there. There isn’t much else that I can do; it’s illegal to employ someone who is not a registered citizen. I rely on odd jobs now and then, but day-to-day life is a struggle.
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4 July 2014
The Star
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.
“His appearance will complete the first phase of the public hearings,” said Baloyi.
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3 July 2014
Mail & Guardian Online
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 matter. It then leaves two former government officials to respond to these allegations, thus implying that the critics are the inventors of every allegation of fraud and corruption.
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2 July 2014
Mail & Guardian Online
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, for they were the bi-products of war.
And so the dinner table might speculate that arms deals are messy, highly corrupted transactions.
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29 June 2014
City Press
The conditions in which allegedly illegal foreigners are being detained at the Lindela Repatriation Centre in Krugersdorp nearly sparked a riot during a recent visit by Constitutional Court Justice Edwin Cameron.
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27 June 2014
SABC News
Statelessness is a reality for more than 12-million people across the globe, according to the UNHCR.
Not allowed access to a nationality, hundreds of thousands continue to endure a marginal shadowy existence, feeling the generational impact of a lack of documentation on their basic human freedoms.
Lawyers for Human Rights' Liesl Muller shed light on the issue.
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