The Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) has extended funding support to Crime Check Foundation (CCF) in a collective quest to end laws, which criminalize the status of individuals...
Decriminalising and declassifying petty offences in Tunisian legislation
Recently, the Organization Against Torture in Tunisia organised an experts seminar, as part of this campaign's activities. The seminar was held in a hotel in Hammamet on March 20 and...
Statement in response to the activity report of the Special Rapporteur on Prisons, Conditions of Detention and Policing in Africa (Item 7)
68th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights 14 April – 4 May 2021 Dear Hon. Chairperson, Hon. Commissioners, all protocols observed. The Centre for Human...
Eleven people who are homeless go to court to challenge Cape Town’s discriminatory by-laws
Last week eleven people experiencing homlessness launched applications in both the Western Cape High Court and the Equality Court (South Africa) challenging the constitutionality and discriminatory impact of two of...
Petty Offences Newsletter: November 2020 to February 2021 Activities
The quarterly digest of petty offences campaign activities for November 2020 to February 2021 is in three languages, English, Portuguese and French.
Imprisoned under the Cover of COVID
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism25 November 2020 Edward was lying on his bed when he heard shouting and banging. Last night had been fun: he’d hosted some friends at the...
Documentary on Zambia prisons
https://youtu.be/lUIqiZJJMlk The Legal Resources Foundation, Southern Africa Litigation Centre, Prisoners Reintergration and Empowerment Organisation and Decisive Minds put together a documentary on prison conditions in Zambia and the urgent need...
Rwanda Should Stop Locking Up the Poor
Reliefweb 21 December 2020 African Court Decision Condemns Practice The African Court on Human and People’s Rights has held that states’ laws enabling the detention of people who, often because...
COVID-19 Rules Haunt the Poor
The NationBy James Chavula27 January 2021 In 2017, a vendor moved the Constitutional Court to scrape a colonial law made by Britain in 1924 that empowered police to extort bribes...
Decriminalization of Petty Offences in Morocco towards Restorative Justice
As part of the African campaign to decriminalise petty offences, the ADALA (Association "for the right to a fair trial"), with the support of the Open Society Foundations, officially launched...
South African vagrancy laws hark back to colonial times and violate human rights
Daily MaverickAbdirahman Maalim Gossar13 December 2020 In a watershed judgment, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights has ruled that vague, outdated colonial-era laws, like those that outlaw being...
African Court’s Landmark Opinion Could Reduce Criminalization of Poverty, Prison Overcrowding
All Africa Open Society Foundations (New York)'s Press Release 4 December 2020 Today, a continental court in Africa delivered a landmark opinion on colonial era vagrancy laws, which criminalize activities...
Repeal Vagrancy Laws as they are Discriminatory: African Court Declares!
The African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights, in its 59th Ordinary Session, has today declared that vagrancy laws as contained in national laws are in breach of the African...
Findings on Petty Offences Violations in Nigeria
Lawyers Alert in partnership with Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) released petty offences violations data report for Nigeria. The data is captured using its online tool and is...
Johannesburg cannot Police its Future
The Mail & Guardian On 29 June this year, amid the generalized panic and concern about rising Covid-19 infection and police brutality both locally and globally, the Johannesburg High Court,...
Kenya’s Gulag: The Dehumanisation and Exploitation of Inmates in State Prisons
The ElephantBy Patrick Gathara Kenyan prisons today carry the DNA of their forebears – the colonial prisons and Mau Mau detention camps. They are about brutalising prisoners into submission and...
Petty Offences Newsletter: Digest of Campaign activities in September 2020
In September 2020, the Regional Campaign to Decriminalise Petty Offences hosted a virtual conference entitled Policing Pandemics, Balancing Rights. The conference communique and recordings of the conference are available online, for 14...
Petty Offences Newsletter: Increased Criminalisation in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Africa
Regional Campaign partners remain deeply concerned about the criminalisation of poverty across our continent. It is critical that the Principles on the Decriminalisation of Petty Offences are implemented by all...
ZIMBABWE: Balancing Human Rights and Enforcement of Public Health Measures
ICJ Kenya By Richard Ncube Corona virus which is popularly known as COVID 19 has taken a terrible grip of the world- it is described as an invisible enemy. [1] What started...
Enemies of the Nation: How the ‘war on drugs’ has failed South Africa
The Daily Maverick First published by GroundUp The global “war on drugs” has failed. The decades during which it has been waged have inflicted devastating consequences on societies in both...
PRESS RELEASE: With People in Detention Vulnerable to Uncontrollable spreads of COVID-19, Ground-Breaking Research Investigates the Gruelling Reality of Female Imprisonment in Sierra Leone
AdvocAid First comprehensive study of women in Sierra Leone’s prisons finds 62% of those interviewed were pre-trial detainees Pretrial detention contributes to overcrowding, which is alarming with the current COVID-19...
Malawi Human Rights Groups Warn of COVID Deaths in Packed Prisons
The Guardian Human rights campaigners in Malawi are calling on the government to urgently release people from its notoriously overcrowded prisons as cases of Covid-19 are rising among both staff...
In Prisons Across Sierra Leone, Women are Detained because they Owe Debt
Progressive International Women’s imprisonment is closely related to poverty: women are in debt because they are poor and cannot afford basic life expenses, and their experiences are worsened because they...
Lawyers Alert Releases Data on Human Rights Abuse Associated with Petty Offences in Nigeria
The Nigerian Voice Data on human rights abuse associated with petty offences in Nigeria covering the period October 2019 and March 2020 have been released by Lawyers Alert. The Data...
Thousands of South Africans who Broke Lockdown Rules could have Criminal Records
Business Tech The Department of Justice and Correctional Services is currently working on new legislation which will stop admission of guilt fines attracting criminal records in South Africas, says deputy...
Three Months in Jail for Breaking Lockdown Rules, Judge Orders Release of Waste Pickers
The Citizen Forced to choose between hunger and breaching the lockdown regulations, two waste pickers chose the latter – and wound up behind bars for three months. Now, the North...
Prisons, Overcrowding and Preventing Covid-19 Transmission
Over 163,000 people are in correctional facilities in South Africa. Outbreaks of Covid-19 in these prisons can have catastrophic consequences for both prisoners and the public healthcare system. This article...
Amnesty International: Sub-Saharan States must Protect Detainees against COVID-19
Amnesty International In many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, prisons are overcrowded. Prisoners often live in squalid conditions and the healthcare systems inside prisons are extremely poor. The coronavirus pandemic makes...
Malawi to Decongest Prisons With Covid-19 Cases Rising Fast Among Inmates
AllAfrica Minister of homeland security, Richard Chimwendo Banda , acknowledged that the situation in the the country's prisons over Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic is deteriorating because of overcrowding. Chimwendo Banda said...
Digest on Excessive Use of Force in Response to COVID-19 Pandemic
The Regional Campaign to Decriminalise Petty Offences has long argued for a change in police arrest practices and increased accountability of law enforcement agencies. Deprose Muchena, the Director of Amnesty...
Overhaul and Align Laws on use of Force
The Mail & Guardian By Sean Tait On April 10, Collins Khosa was allegedly assaulted by members of the South African National Defence Force and the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department....
Malawi: Human Rights During a Lockdown
The Weekend Nation By Victor Mhango from the Centre for Human Rights Education, Advice and Assistance (CHREAA) and Anneke Meerkotter and Chikondi Chijozi from the Southern Africa Litigation Centre SALC)...
Municipal oversight bodies must be beefed up to protect against human rights abuses by police
The Daily Maverick In the wake of the controversy surrounding a video of Cape Town resident Bulelani Qolani being dragged naked from his shack by municipal police, is it not...
UN Torture Prevention Body: COVID-19 shows need to Strengthen National Preventive Mechanisms
GENEVA (2 July 2020) — The UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT) has called for the role of domestic monitoring bodies, officially known as National Preventive Mechanisms (NPMs), to be strengthened, highlighting...
UN Statement on COVID-19 Exacerbating the Risk of ill-treatment and Torture Worldwide
On 26 June 2020, the UN Anti-Torture Mechanisms issued a statement on how COVID-19 exacerbates the risk of ill-treatment and torture worldwide. The statement notes that excessive force to enforce...
Sex Workers in Africa Are More Vulnerable During COVID-19
The Global Fund Sex workers in Africa are among the communities suffering the most due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as lockdowns and police crackdowns leave millions without income. Sex workers...
Why Criminal Justice Reforms are on Course
The Daily Nation By Grace Ngenye When I read the Daily Nation article (June 17, 2020) on the Committee on Criminal Justice Reforms (NCCJR), my first reaction was gratitude for...
Judge rules that kids who possess or use cannabis cannot be criminals
Times Live A law that criminalises children who possess or use cannabis has been declared unconstitutional by a Johannesburg high court judge. Judge Ingrid Opperman said the way children were...
CSOs Call for Urgent Decongestion as Prisons Record COVID-19 Cases
On 14 July 2020, the Malawi Prison Service registered its first COVID-19 case at Mzimba Prison through a prisoner. On the same day, an inmate also tested positive for the...
Decongest prisons now!
The COVID-19 pandemic has again highlighted the urgent need to decongest prisons throughout Africa. Although many countries have initiated decongestion measures, there is a simultaneous increase in arrests resulting from...
APCOF Statement- Special Rapporteur on Prisons Conditions of Detention and Policing in Africa
The African Policing Civilian Oversight Forum (APCOF) welcomes the opportunity to make this submission to the Special Rapporteur on Prisons, Conditions of Detention and Policing in Africa, and we do...
Campaign against Petty offences during the Covid-19 Pandemic
Nigerian court rules against arrest of sex workers
A Nigerian court has voided the arrest of commercial sex workers in Abuja by law enforcement officials. The Abuja Federal High Court presided over by Justice Binta Nyako on Wednesday declared that...
Street Vendors and Public Space: An interactive e-book
By: WIEGO Date: February 2020 Through photography and text, this e-book offers an in-depth look at the important role street vendors play in cities, the challenges they face, and the solutions...
NEWS: ZAMBIA SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS PRISONERS’ RIGHTS TO FOOD AND IMPROVED PRISON CONDITIONS
SALC : ANNEKE MEERKOTTER Lusaka, 16 December 2019 – The Supreme Court of Zambia on 9 December 2019 handed down an important judgment on prisoners’ rights. The case was brought by...
Litigating to Protect the Rights of Poor and Marginalized Groups in Urban Spaces
Download PDF For centuries, and across the world, penal laws have been used to regulate urban spaces, with a cruel focus on relegating poor and marginalized groups from such spaces....
Protecting Malawi’s sex workers from police: ‘They say we’re sinners’
Although there is no law against prostitution in Malawi, sex workers routinely face abuse and wrongful arrest by police who give in to social stigma and misunderstand the law, according...
Exclusive Inquiry: When Poverty Law Strikes
Uganda Launches Coalition to Decriminalize Petty Offences
21 Civil society organizations have formed the Uganda Coalition to decriminalize petty offences. The coalition was formed at a 2-day retreat convened by the Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum...
UGANDA: Stop Arresting People For The Crime of “Idle and Disorderly”
H.E the President of the Republic of Uganda has directed that no person should be arrested for the crime of "idle and disorderly". The President has also directed that all those...