Human Rights

Expert witness: SAPS must be held accountable for how they spend their budget

Police oversight should be extended to include how SAPS spends their budget. This was the testimony of Sean Tait, coordinator of the African Policing Civilian Oversight Forum, at the Khayelitsha Commission of Inquiry this morning.

Adam Armstrong

News | 13 May 2014

How the UN in Cape Town deals with refugees: an insider’s account

Delphine Pedeboy interned with the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) earlier this year. It was a frustrating experience, for her but even more so for the refugees she dealt with.

Delphine Pedeboy

Opinion | 13 May 2014

O’Regan compares distribution of police resources to apartheid

Jean Redpath, a criminologist at the University of Western Cape, was the first person to testify in the second phase of the Khayelitsha Commission of Inquiry, which started at Lookout Hill this morning. Redpath argued that the formula used to calculate police resource allocation is irrational.

Adam Armstrong

News | 12 May 2014

How I was raped in prison

Denial and a homophobic culture means rape of male prisoners by other men remains prison’s dirty secret. Pharie Sefali interviewed a young man who was raped in prison.

Pharie Sefali

News | 9 May 2014

Hangberg: mixed reaction to new housing development

For the first time since a violent clash between residents and law enforcement in 2010, development of new housing is proceeding in Hangberg, Hout Bay. 142 new rental units are being built.

Barbara Maregele

News | 8 May 2014

Police clash with high-school students in Cape Town - province agrees to demands

Education authorities have agreed to address students' demands after about 300 students from Sizimisele Technical High School in Khayelitsha tried to protest yesterday in the city centre, complaining of a lack of teachers. The protest was blocked by a heavy police presence.

Sibusiso Tshabalala

News | 7 May 2014

On the brink of genocide: Understanding what’s happening in the Central African Republic

“The Central African Republic stands on the brink of genocide; some would say it has already commenced,” said Archbishop Desmond Tutu in April.

Shireen Mukadam

Opinion | 5 May 2014

A brief history of May Day

The basic demand of May Day was for an eight-hour working day —eight for work, eight for leisure and eight for sleep. It is something we still have to achieve, not just in South Africa, but in many other countries.

Terry Bell

Analysis | 1 May 2014

Porta potties hit Bishopscourt

Following a campaign in Constantia earlier this week, the Ses’khona People’s Rights Movement took their protest against portable toilets to Bishopscourt today.

Johnnie Isaac and Nathan Geffen

Feature | 30 April 2014

SAPS officer grilled in Angy Peter trial

The trial of Social Justice Coalition leader Angy Peter and her husband Isaac Mbadu is continuing in the Cape High Court. Peter and Mbadu are on trial, with Azola Dayimani and Christopher Dina, for the murder by ‘necklacing’ of Rowan du Preez (also known as Siphiwo Mbevu) in October 2012.

Simone Haysom

News | 30 April 2014

“˜Nothing About Us, Without Us!’ - keeping the Constitution alive

The stories told by the mothers of three children with disabilities at a series of workshops at the Consitutional Court underline the contrast between constitutional rights and the grim reality.

Muhammad Zakaria Suleman and Tim Fish Hodgson

Opinion | 29 April 2014

Ceres community mobilises against homophobia

When David Olyn was tortured and murdered in the idyllic Western Cape town of Ceres just because he was gay, the town's residents came together to fight homophobia.

GroundUp Staff

News | 25 April 2014

Sanitation Summit: “Our dignity is undermined”

“Lack of access to water and sanitation is an insult to human dignity,” emphasised the Social Justice Coalition (SJC)in a National Sanitation Summit held at Community House in Salt River yesterday.

Bulelani Ngovi

News | 24 April 2014

Khayelitsha cops: “We are the whipping boys”

While the Marikana hearings drift through the doldrums in Rustenberg, at Khayelitsha’s Lookout Hill another commission into police failings is cautiously gathering momentum. The O’Regan-Pikoli Commission of Inquiry is a timely and consolatory reminder of the judicial efficiency South Africa is capable of.

Richard Conyngham

Opinion | 22 April 2014

Trial that’s more important than Pistorius

While Oscar Pistorius’s trial is one of the most watched in history, the trial of Angy Peter and Isaac Mbadu has been running at the same time. It tells us far more about crime, policing and justice in South Africa than the Pistorius one.

Joel Bregman

Feature | 22 April 2014

What’s that you say … human-whats?

Nearly two decades into our democracy, for most people living in South Africa our Constitution might as well be written in Latin, because it is more than likely that they have never read it.

Tim Fish Hodgson and Tawana Nharingo

Opinion | 17 April 2014