Lawyers with court order denied access to foreigners

LAWYERS for Human Rights plans to take the police to court again this week after the organisation was denied access to foreigners arrested in Johannesburg during Operation Fiela on Friday.

The organisation went to court on Friday and obtained an order instructing the police to give them access to the detainees. By yesterday afternoon, the lawyers were still denied access to foreigners detained at the Johannesburg Central police station.

Operation Fiela, which means “to sweep clean”, is aimed at cracking down on crime and restoring order in provinces hit by xenophobic violence.

Gauteng police spokeswoman Lieutenant-Colonel Katlego Mogale said 211 men and 24 women were arrested for being undocumented immigrants. Two other people were arrested for the possession of drugs.

Asylum seekers

Jacob van Garderen, the national director of Lawyers for Human Rights, said they were finalising court papers.

“We are worried that there are asylum seekers and others with permits who have been arrested and they will be deported. After hours of trying to see those arrested, the station commander told us we could not see them. We are trying to see what further litigation we can get so we can see the detainees.”

Mogale could not explain why the lawyers were denied access to the detainees.

One of the 16 buildings raided on Friday was the Central Methodist Church, which has been a sanctuary for Zimbabwean migrants for more than 15 years.

The church’s former head, Bishop Paul Verryn, compared Operation Fiela to Zimbabwe’s Operation Murambatsvina, in which the Zimbabwean government evicted 700 000 people from informal settlements in 2005.

“The operations have similar names. They both mean to get rid of unwanted things and they both have devastating results on the people concerned,” he said.

Verryn said he was deeply disappointed by the government targeting foreigners.

“There is more than one way to kill someone. I have no idea how these people are going to heal. They will have this pain for years, especially the children,” he said.

Department of Home Affairs spokesman Mayihlome Tshwete said the raids were not an abuse of power or human rights. “It is illegal to be in the country without papers. Even as a South African, you have to have papers.”

He said during the xenophobic attacks, the department and the security cluster worked hard to support foreigners.

“We have been deporting illegal immigrants before the first xenophobic violence in 2008. It is part of our duties.”

Tshwete said criticism that the raids contituted xenophobia were unfortunate.

Yesterday, North West police spokesman Colonel Sabata Mokgwabone said that 210 suspected undocumented people were taken in for processing and verification of documents.

Dale McKinley, from the Right-2-Know Campaign, said the organisation was worried about the army’s involvement in the operation.