This week we cover the TAC’s march on Khayelitsha Hospital and an alert put out by Lawyers for Human Rights on the unconstitutionality of draft immigration regulations.
Brent Meersman
News | 26 March 2014
Advocate Nazreen Bawa continued to lead evidence today with Colonel Gert Nel, former station commander of Harare police station, and Colonel Tshotleho Raboliba, current station commander at Harare.
Adam Armstrong
News | 18 March 2014
Public hearings of the Khayelitsha Commission of Inquiry into allegations of police inefficiency and a breakdown in relations between the community and the police restarted on 17 March with a number of high ranking SAPS officers in attendance.
Adam Armstrong
News | 18 March 2014
On Tuesday 11 March, the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) officially launched their 2014 report on water and sanitation. But the Department of Water Affairs has called the report “outdated, baseless and misleading”.
Martha Sithole and Jacques van Heerden
News | 14 March 2014
This week we cover the campaign to fix our patent laws, concern over changes to the new Public Administration Bill that may make it easier for corrupt officials, and the Israeli Apartheid week.
Brent Meersman
News | 12 March 2014
Prolific and acclaimed South African poet and writer Mongane Wally Serote, one of only two African writers (the other being Leopold Sedar Senghor) to be honoured with the Golden Wreath Award for a lifetime achievement in poetry, focuses his attention on 21st century South Africa in his latest novel, Rumours.
Mongane Wally Serote
News | 12 March 2014
Mpho Mabhena writes about her distressing experience of the plight of women in the Congo.
Mpho Mabhena
Opinion | 12 March 2014
Four days after the bloodletting that has become known as the Marikana massacre, my Inside Labour column supported the call for a comprehensive and independent inquiry. And it noted, reflecting a widespread view within the labour movement: “The Lonmin tragedy is a wake-up call that South Africa will ignore at its peril.” Now, 19 months later and with the strike on the platinum belt having gone on for nearly two months, that warning seems even more appropriate. Below is an updated commentary that first appeared on the first anniversary of Marikana.
Terry Bell
Opinion | 10 March 2014
A Zimbabwean woman, Sandra Chinyanga, is unhappy because her daughter was dropped from the Techno Girl Programme after three years of consistent participation. Now she has been told that her daughter should never have been allowed to join the programme, because she is an immigrant.
Tariro Washinyira
News | 5 March 2014
Sex workers and sex worker advocates in Durban, Polokwane, Cape Town and Johannesburg took to the streets on Monday to honour International Sex Worker Rights’ Day. Similar marches were held in cities and towns all over the world. The protesters were calling attention to the human rights abuses suffered by sex workers and demanded legal recognition of sex work as a form of employment.
Marlise Richter
News | 4 March 2014
Uganda’s brutal new anti-gay law puts Dembe Ainebyona (not her real name) in a difficult situation because she may never see her country of birth again.
Tariro Washinyira
News | 4 March 2014
The leaders who spoke of an African renaissance and who brought about the African Union ignored gay rights. We are seeing the consequences of their omission today.
Leon Linz
Opinion | 3 March 2014
The Eastern Cape Health Department has instructed hospitals to give an untested medicine to patients with tuberculosis. It has not received ethical approval to proceed with this clinical trial. Now it appears the project has been scrapped, apparently after the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) asked the national government to intervene.
GroundUp Staff
News | 28 February 2014
On 24 February 2014, Uganda passed legislation that criminalises homosexuality. Paul Semugoma, a gay Ugandan activist who recently gained temporary residence in South Africa, says that the legislation’s impact will be extensive among all Ugandan society. The legislation, according to Paul, is more about consolidating President Yoweri Museveni’s power ahead of the 2016 Ugandan elections than about dealing with any meaningful social ill.
Jonathan Dockney
News | 27 February 2014
Cape Town Pride 2014 (CTP) takes place from 21 February to 1 March. The annual festival aims to celebrate gay rights in South Africa. This year’s theme is “uniting cultures in Cape Town”. However, people from communities around Cape Town have said that they feel CTP excludes them and the serious issues affecting them as gay people.
Jonathan Dockney and GroundUp Staff
News | 27 February 2014
Paul Kasonkomona, a human rights activists working in Zambia, has been acquitted after almost a year of legal proceedings.
Jonathan Dockney
News | 26 February 2014