Africa Newspapers

AllAfrica News: Human Rights

• South Africa: State Mental Health Patients Are Being Held in Prisons
  [GroundUp] Over 90 people with mental illness are being held in various prisons in the Eastern Cape instead of being looked after in hospitals. They are state patients - people declared unfit to stand trial or found not criminally responsible because of their illness or "mental defect" (the state's term). This is despite them being ordered by the courts to be placed in mental health facilities.
  
  
• Zimbabwe: Opposition Appeals to SADC, AU and UN Over Violence
  [News24Wire] Zimbabwe's main opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party has appealed to regional and international bodies to rein in President Robert Mugabe over an upsurge in politically motivated violence in the southern African country.
  
  
• Zimbabwe: Gukurahundi Not Mere 'Disturbances', but Genocide
  [263Chat] It was not only shocking, but bewildering, to read - in a recent edition of the state-run The Herald newspaper - that Zimbabwe Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko recklessly referred to the Gukurahundi massacres of the 1980s as 'disturbances'.
  
  
• Zimbabwe: Ruling Party Violence Could Cause Civil War - Opposition
  [New Zimbabwe] In the face of increased politically motivated violence ahead of the 2018 elections, the MDC-T has warned Zanu PF to allow other parties to campaign freely as failure to do so might trigger a civil war.
  
  
• South Africa: Catch-22 for Refugee in Prison
  [GroundUp] Abdulkadir Mohammed Faghi is a Somali refugee who was convicted in September 2011 for car theft, fraud and forgery. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison. He became eligible for parole in November 2015, but it has always been denied on the basis that his documents are not in order. The catch is that he cannot renew his papers while he is in prison.
  
  
• Zambia: Student Arrested For 'Insulting' President Lungu
  [Zambia Reports] Musician and political commentator Chama Fumba, popularly known as Pilato has branded as stupid the arrest of 35-year old DMI St Eugene student Edward Makayi over a facebook posting allegedly insulting President Edgar Lungu.
  
  
• Nigeria: Court Orders Arrest of Police CPL Over Teen Rape
  [Daily Trust] Damaturu -The Chief Magistrate's Court, Damaturu, has ordered the arrest of Corporal Musa Idrisa of the Nigeria Police Force for refusing to appear in court over alleged rape of a 13-year-old JSS1 student of Ali Marami Day Secondary School.
  
  
• Namibia: Hai//Om Want More Land
  [Namibian] THE Hai //om need more land, said Hai //om Traditional Authority chief David Khamuxab last Thursday.
  
  
• Zimbabwe: Disabled Folks Fume As Police Ban March to Parliament
  [New Zimbabwe] Police in Harare have bared people with disabilities from handing over a petition to parliament.
  
  
• Uganda: Ugandans Take Chinese Firm to Court in Latest HIV Workplace Battle
  [Thomson Reuters Foundation] Kampala -When Kato was called into his manager's office, the Ugandan driver assumed he would be sent on an errand, not be ordered to take an HIV test and lose his job when it came back positive, leading him to sue his Chinese employer for unfair dismissal.
  
  
• Zimbabwe: Opposition Village Head's Home Torched
  [New Zimbabwe] Cases of arson to properties belonging to opposition members are on the increase with the latest victim, a kraal head in Mazowe, Tendai Nyachuru's homestead torched Monday night by suspected Zanu PF youths.
  
  
• Sudan: Journalist Held Covering El Gedaref Teachers' Protest
  [Radio Dabanga] El Gedaref -On Tuesday the security services in El Gedaref arrested journalist Abdellatif El Daou while he was covering a protest by El Gedaref's teachers demanding to be free on Eid Al Fitr (the conclusion of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan) and a nature of work allowance.
  
  
• Nigeria: Speaker Decries Lack of Inter-Agency Cooperation On IDPs
  [This Day] Abuja -The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, Tuesday condemned the lack of inter-agency cooperation in dealing with displaced persons, refugees and migrants in the country.
  
  
• Nigeria: Exit of a Human Rights Defender
  [This Day] Segun James revisits the life and times of Olu Onagoruwa?, a human rights defender, whose decision to work for the late military dictator, Sani Abacha, as Attorney General of the Federation, resulted in a reversal of fortunes in his political and personal life
  
  
• Congo-Kinshasa: Peace Is the 'Bedrock' for Women's Development and Human Rights UN Deputy Chief Says in DR Congo
  [UN News] The importance of reversing the tragedies of violence, particularly against women and children, and ensuring that women's and girl's voices are heard in all aspects of society are at the core of the second leg of a high-level United Nations-African Union (AU) mission to Africa, which today visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).