Programme News
20 March 2012
(Press release)
Children do not belong in detention!
Global report and campaign to end immigration detention of children to be launched at UN Human Rights Council
this press release is embargoed until 21 March 2012
Johannesburg 19th March 2012: Every day, around the world, thousands of children, many of them unaccompanied minors, are deprived of their freedom and are locked up simply because they do not...
13 March 2012
(News)
Seepage from mines has poisoned the town’s water and government estimates it will cost R200m to fix, writes Sue Blaine
WHEN Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa meets Power Mndebele, a South African Communist Party organiser in Carolina, she meets a young man who is shaking with anger. About 17000 people live in the mining and farming community of Carolina,...
12 March 2012
(News)
Foreigners who own spaza shops and other businesses may soon be subject to by-laws that could be stricter than their South African counterparts, according to a report on Saturday. In the African National Congress's peace and stability policy discussion document, the ruling party proposes that non-South Africans should not run spaza shops without adhering to certain legislated...
12 March 2012
(News)
In a policy discussion document the ANC has proposed tighter management of immigration. The ruling party proposes a clampdown on informal businesses owned by refugees and asylum seekers, in particular those that contravene municipal by-laws.
An ANC policy document proposing new measures to manage asylum seekers has sparked an outcry from human rights bodies and migrant communities who...
12 March 2012
(News)
GE.11- 17506
Human Rights Council
Nineteenth session
Agenda item 3
Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil,
political, economic, social and cultural rights,
including the right to development
Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation
of human rights defenders, Margaret Sekaggya
Summary
The Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Margaret...
9 March 2012
(News)
In a victory both moral and diplomatic, South Africa took the lead this week during the first debate at the United Nations on the rights of sexual minorities. The country positioned itself firmly as a global leader in the protection of the rights of gay, lesbian and transgender people and played a key role in preventing a walkout of other African states. South Africa was supported by...
8 March 2012
(News)
The Protection of State Information Bill: Is the ‘liberator’ crossing the floor?
By Lesirela Letsebe
The democratic South African government has aroused a huge outcry by introducing the Protection of State Information Bill (B6 of 2010), which some media have likened to the ‘draconian’ apartheid era Internal Security Act 74 of 1982 with its stated object: ‘To provide...
6 March 2012
(News)
The United Nations Human Rights Council will hold the first-ever formal inter-governmental debate on violence and discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people on 7 March in Geneva between 12:00 and 15:00 (Geneva time). It will be webcast live at www.un.org/webcast.
The debate, sponsored by South Africa and Brazil, will feature panelists from Brazil,...
23 February 2012
(News)
Is SA revisiting its commitment against the death penalty? The government’s appeal to the Constitutional Court tomorrow suggest so.
KAAJAL RAMJATHAN-KEOGH and DAVID COTE
Published: 2012/02/22 07:52:28 AM
IS SA revisiting its commitment against the death penalty? The...
22 February 2012
(Press release)
The South African Government is appealing a High Court judgment that two Botswana nationals could not be deported or extradited to stand trial in Botswana - where they face the death penalty if convicted - without the requisite assurance that the death penalty will not be imposed or carried out under any circumstances.
Lawyers for Human Rights brought this case for Emmanuel Tsebe and Jerry...