Lawyers to fight asylum policy

South African human rights lawyers were threatening legal action against the department of home affairs for ordering border posts to turn back asylum-seekers and refugees arriving through neighbouring states, ‘Business Day’ reported on Monday. At the heart of the dispute, according to the report, was an undated circular issued by department director-general Billy Masetlha, ordering border authorities to end the practice of allowing asylum seekers and refugees who travel via “safe neighbouring states” to enter South Africa. “The bona fides of such persons should be verified at ports of entry and they should be referred back (to) where they come from. If they insist on entering the Republic, they should be detained,” the circular was quoted as saying. Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) refugee projects co-ordinator Jacob van Garderen was quoted as saying that South Africa was following an “exclusion” policy that would inflate the refugee populations of needy African countries. He said South Africa’s refugee population was “very small” compared with other African countries. South Africa has had about 61,000 asylum applications since 1994, while Tanzania has accepted more than one million refugees and Zambia has several hundred thousand, the report said. Immigration lawyer Chris Watters said the circular meant that if Angolans fleeing the war in their home country attempted to enter South Africa via Namibia, they could become the responsibility of Namibian authorities. This was disturbing, he was quoted as saying, because Namibia tended to deport Angolans, especially those suspected of being rebel UNITA supporters, back to Angola. Amnesty International had voiced concern about their subsequent persecution at the hands of the Angolan authorities, Watters added. Home affairs spokesman Hennie Meyer denied that the policy was aimed at keeping out such asylum-seekers. The directive was aimed mainly at people who had refugee status in neighbouring states, but wanted to come to South Africa because they did not want to “live in refugee camps”, he said.