Programme News
8 January 2015
(News)
Court shows home affairs employees that despite what they believe, they’re not above the law, writes Carmel Rickard.
At last, the apparently almighty Department of Home Affairs has been forced to toe the line. Almost 20 years since South Africa’s democratic constitution was adopted, the department’s officials might finally begin to respect – or at least not flout –...
7 January 2015
(News)
As scores of refugees living in South Africa continue to be excluded from healthcare services, Lawyers For Human Rights (LHR) says the fight to change this did not end with the death of Badesa Fokora, an Ethiopian refugee who died in November while taking the health minister to court.
Fokora was challenging the constitutionality of the National Health Act’s provision preventing him as a...
6 January 2015
(News)
Human rights organisations will not hesitate to haul senior police officers allegedly implicated in the rendition of Zimbabwean political dissidents before the International Criminal Court.
Gauteng Hawks boss Major-General Shadrack Sibiya, and the head of the Hawks team that allegedly handled renditions, Lieutenant-Colonel Leslie "Cowboy" Maluleka , were yesterday served with...
27 December 2014
(News)
There's a bullet lodged in Ali Hussein's body, somewhere between his right shoulder and neck. It has been there for nearly two months.
"My arm is dead," he says, showing his completely limp right arm, the result of the gunshot wound.
Hussein owns a spaza shop in Site B, Khayelitsha. His shop was robbed in October, and during the incident he was shot twice in the arm. One bullet...
12 December 2014
(News)
Refugee advocates in South Africa have reacted with dismay and scepticism to a planned revamp of the asylum application process which the government says is designed to distinguish economic migrants from people with a bona fide case for refugee status.
"The granting of asylum should not be contingent on an applicant's skills, economic circumstances, employment history or number of...
12 December 2014
(News)
A middleman in the 1999 multi-billion rand arms procurement deal on Thursday told the Seriti Commission of Inquiry he failed to understand why he had been called to testify.
“Why am I here?” Fana Hlongwana asked the commission.
He said he did not understand why there was an issue over the funds, assumed to be millions, he was paid when he acted as a consultant for then defence...
9 December 2014
(Press release)
Civilians in South Sudan have been paying a huge price since the outbreak, on December 15, 2013, of the conflict which opposed the forces loyal to the President Salva Kiir and those supporting the former Vice President Riek Machar. In its mission report on South Sudan, FIDH raises serious concerns over the risks of a further deterioration of the human rights and humanitarian situation in the...
Keynote address by Zwelinzima Vavi, Cosatu General Secretary, to the World Social Forum on Migration
8 December 2014
(News)
It is especially appropriate that this very important discussion in migration is happening here in Africa, and on a very special date, a year to the day since we lost our great liberator and leader, Comrade Nelson Mandela. There could be no finer role model for this gathering to follow. He, better than anyone, showed us how to resolve difficult and complex challenges, bringing people together,...
8 December 2014
(News)
South African police fired rubber bullets to disperse protesters who blocked a highway with rocks and tires near Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. (IVN)’s Platreef project to demonstrate against plans to start building the $1.6 billion platinum mine.
Some members of the local community are opposed to the approval of a license that allows billionaire Robert Friedland’s Ivanhoe to develop Platreef....
3 December 2014
(Press release)
The Court of Justice of the European Union has issued a landmark decision on assessing the credibility of sexual minority asylum seekers. In A, B and C vs. Staatssecretaris van Veiligheiden Justitie, the Court disallowed inappropriate practices in evaluating the claims of asylum applicants claiming persecution based on their sexual orientation. ORAM hopes the Court's ruling will bring about...