Programme News
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...
14 September 2011
(Press release)
On Thursday, 15 September 2011 the Constitutional Court will hear the direct appeal of Nthabiseng Pheko and the Occupiers of Bapsfontein Informal Settlement and the Ekhuruleni Municipality. LHR has brought this appeal on behalf of the residents of this informal settlement who were forcibly removed in terms of disaster management legislation avoiding the protections against evictions which...
12 September 2011
(Press release)
On Tuesday, 13 September 2011 the Constitutional Court will hear an appeal brought by Lawyers for Human Rights on behalf of the occupants of two neighbouring portions of the farms Mooiplaas and Skurweplaas in Tshwane. The two matters were joined by the Constitutional Court and will be heard simultaneously and on an expedited basis.
At the centre of the dispute is the Itireleng Informal...
8 September 2011
(News)
BACKYARDERS who have spent winter in tents on city-owned land in Mitchell’s Plain say they would rather live on an exposed field than go to Blikkiesdorp where the city intends to move them.
The sentiment was expressed by backyarders standing outside the Cape High Court on Tuesday last week as Judge Nathan Erasmus heard their appeal brought by Lawyers for Human Rights – against an...
2 September 2011
(News)
Mail and Guardian: Foreigners in Middelburg, Mpumalanga, allege that the local council is working hand in glove with local business people to shut down their shops. The Somali Refugee Forum claims that since mid-June about 50 Somali, Ethiopian and other foreign-owned tuckshops have been closed in the Steve Tshwete municipality, which includes Middelburg and surrounding townships, and that local...
31 August 2011
(News)
24 hours - That's what Home Affairs has given Soweto-born Kaya FM producer to prove he is South African
KAYA FM executive producer Thabo Shole-Mashao was racing against time yesterday in a bid to prove to the Department of Home Affairs that he is a South African. Shole-Mashao, 31, went to Home Affairs to apply for a new passport but officials confiscated his ID and gave him 24 hours to prove...
31 August 2011
(News)
IRIN: In a week that saw two Somali traders shot dead in Cape Town and two more in Port Elizabeth, the South African government's handling of xenophobia received the lowest possible rating in a report by the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) Monitoring Project. Three years after widespread violence against foreigners broke out across the country, evaluators from the Monitoring Project noted...
31 August 2011
(News)
GENEVA, August 25 (UNHCR) – The UN refugee agency today launches a global campaign to promote action against statelessness, a scourge for millions of people worldwide. "These people are in desperate need of help because they live in a nightmarish legal limbo," High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said. "This makes them some of the most excluded people in the...
30 August 2011
(News)
There is no bi-lateral agreement between South Africa and Zimbabwe to prevent refugees from the famine-wracked Horn of Africa entering South Africa, said state officials last week.The statements from the South African department of Home Affairs and the Zimbabwean Ministry of Foreign Affairs this week are in direct contrast to statements appearing on the South African Home Affairs website, and...