Human Rights

Poverty and waste - the other side of Grahamstown

On the edge of the university hamlet of Grahamstown, thereā€™s a municipal dump where people discard trash. Itā€™s far enough out of town to not smell the stench ā€“ or for most locals not to be reminded of the haunting plight of the poor who subsist off the waste.

Mandy de Waal

Feature | 20 November 2013

A law journal for the rest of us

All people are affected by the law but few understand it. Lawyers and judges speak and write using complicated language. Nearly any non-lawyer who picks up a law journal would find it dry and unintelligible. Enter the People's Law Journal, a publication that aims to change this.

GroundUp Staff

News | 19 November 2013

Dozens of unpaid asbestosis claims leave sick workers unsupported for years

Cassiem Mohammed is a 70-year-old retired boiler cleaner from the now-closed Athlone Power Station (APS). He was diagnosed with asbestosis (fibrosis of the lung) in the mid-1990s from exposure to asbestos while he was working at the APS.

Jonathan Dockney

News | 13 November 2013

The week in political activism

This week we have reports from Corruption Watch, the Social Justice Coalition, the International Organisation for Migration and the Aids Rights Alliance for Southern Africa.

Delphine Pedeboy

News | 6 November 2013

Over R1 billion in fund - yet apartheid victims still await compensation

The Presidentā€™s Fund was established in 2003 under President Thabo Mbeki to compensate apartheid victims. It has accumulated over a billion rands. Nevertheless, many apartheid victims who were identified by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to receive compensation from this fund, have still received nothing. Some have died waiting.

Mary-Anne Gontsana

News | 5 November 2013

Health Professions Council tried to stop exposure of Eastern Cape health crisis

Instead of fulfilling its vision to ā€œenhance the quality of healthā€, the Health Professions Council (HPCSA) tried to stop details of the health crisis in the Eastern Cape being made public.

GroundUp Staff

News | 4 November 2013

Slow, unresponsive and unconcerned: How the Health Professions Council hurts patients

The Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) is a statutory body that regulates health workers. It registers doctors and disciplines them if they do something wrong. If it had to perform its tasks properly, patients would benefit. Instead, according to several organisations and doctors, the HPCSAā€™s inefficiency hurts patients.

Delphine Pedeboy and GroundUp Staff

News | 30 October 2013

Patents must serve the public interest

It is in the interests of large multinational companies to secure as many patents as possible. The Treatment Action Campaign, in line with the Draft National Policy on Intellectual Property (IP), argues that patents should only be granted for medicines that are truly new and innovative, for example a brand new cancer cure.

Marcus Low

Opinion | 24 October 2013

Zambian government case against Kasonkomona unravelling

The long-awaited criminal case against Paul Kasonkomona began on 16 and 17 October in the Lusaka Magistrates Court. Witnesses for the prosecution testified during the hearing. According to Anneke Meerkotter of the Southern African Litigation Centre (SALC), the ā€œevidence led by the State during Kasonkomonaā€™s trial confirms suspicions that the arrest and prosecution of Kasonkomona was politically motivatedā€.

Jonathan Dockney

News | 24 October 2013

Home Affairs continues to defy court order and refuses to serve new asylum seekers

A decision taken in 2012 by the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) to stop processing new applicants at the Cape Town refugee reception office has resulted in asylum seekers having to travel long distances at great cost to be documented and renew their permits.

Tariro Washinyira

News | 23 October 2013

How a patent is blocking access to a life-saving TB medicine

Thousands of people in South Africa have drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB). Many of them will die. Death from TB can be slow and horrible. Many of those who do survive will struggle with severe side effects and may need daily pills and injections. Some, like 23-year old Phumeza who described her experience of TB treatment at a Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) press conference last week, will live, but lose their hearing.

Marcus Low

Opinion | 23 October 2013

Copyright, credit, Woolworths and the hummingbird

A Twitter storm erupted on 18 October after South African artist Euodia Roets published a blog post titled ā€˜How Woolworths Really Operates!ā€™. Roets believes her design of a hummingbird on a cushion was used by Woolworths without the company acknowledging it as her work.

Delphine Pedeboy and GroundUp Editor

News | 21 October 2013

G4S and UCT spat over security guards

G4S is the worldā€™s largest international security firm. It has a big presence in South Africa. Employee relations are strained at the University of Cape Town following the transfer of three G4S security guards to other G4S sites in Cape Town in September.

GroundUp Staff

News | 16 October 2013

Zambian government continues prosecution of gay-rights activist

On 15 August 2013 the Zambian High Court refused to hear a constitutional application by Paul Kasonkomona regarding his right to freedom of expression being violated by police charges against him.

Jonathan Dockney

News | 9 October 2013

Khayelitsha residents on the O’Regan/Pikoli Commission

The O'Regan/Pikoli Commision of Inquiry into policing in Khayelitsha is to go ahead after a Constitutional Court ruling last week. GroundUp went to the streets of Khayelitsha to gauge peopleā€™s reaction to the ruling.

Nwabisa Pondoyi

Opinion | 9 October 2013

Blind sidelined by Department of Trade and Industry

South Africaā€™s draft intellectual property policy fails to make any mention of the most progressive copyright treaty in years. Blind and visually impaired people will pay the price if this is not rectified in the final policy.

Marcus Low

Opinion | 2 October 2013