As South Africans celebrate Human Rights Day on Tuesday, some organisations will use the occasion to raise awareness of issues that particularly concern them.
Human Life International said on Monday that it would continue its efforts to lobby until the human rights of all born and unborn children were legally protected.
”We reiterate our view that the killing of any human being cannot be justified for any reason — social, economic or other. We deplore the fact that a whole class of human beings, the unborn, are still without human rights,” said the Roman Catholic Church-inspired lobby group.
The group said South Africa’s abortion law as it now stood was a violation of human rights.
”The fact that the government continues to ignore scientific evidence about the humanity of the unborn child, and allows their killing, undermines society’s respect for human life as a whole,” Human Life International said.
A protest of a different kind was scheduled to take place near Camps Bay in Cape Town, where fishermen unhappy with the government’s long-term fishing rights policy will fast for a day.
The South African Communist Party will use the occasion to intensify its struggle for access to finance and affordable micro-credit as a basic human right.
”We will also use this month to escalate our struggles for a once-off credit amnesty to give the workers and the poor of our country an opportunity to start their economic lives anew,” said Solly Mapaila, SACP national organiser.
Mapaila said that Tuesday was a day for all South Africans to recommit themselves to strengthening democracy and intensifying the struggle for the protection of rights to all, especially women, youth, the disabled and other vulnerable sectors of society.
On Tuesday, South Africa will also be remembering the bloody Sharpeville massacre, in which 67 people were killed and 180 injured during an anti-pass protest near Vereeniging on March 21 1960.
The Sharpeville massacre, as the event became known, prompted worldwide condemnation of South Africa’s apartheid policies and marked the start of the armed resistance in the country.
The protest, one of many planned across the country, was against the pass laws, which required all Africans living or working in and around towns to carry a document (pass) with them at all times. failure to carry this document would lead to arrest.
Forty-six years ago people decided to go to police stations without their passes and demand that police arrest them.
As the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) notes, the idea was that too many people would be arrested, filling the jails to such an extent that the country would not be able to function properly.
”It was hoped that this would lead to the pass laws being scrapped,” said the SAHRC.
But it was not to be as the apartheid government responded with an iron fist. Sharpeville occurred and on the same day at Langa near Cape Town, police baton-charged and fired teargas at protesters, shooting three and injuring several others.
Numerous events are planned to commemorate the fight for human rights, with Minister of Arts and Culture Pallo Jordan addressing the community of Phoenix, Durban on the centenary anniversary of Gandhi’s satyagraha (Sanskrit for ”working in truth”).
Minister of Sport and Recreation Makhenkesi Stofile will be in Mdantsane where a ”veterans-games” event was planned by the Eastern Cape government.
Besides the games, other major events were planned, including the re-internment at Alfred Nzo Heroes’ Acre, Matatiele, of seven fallen freedom fighters whose bodies were exhumed. Provincial and municipal authorities in each province were also planning their own events.
Cosatu places spotlight on farm workers
Meanwhile the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) will not rest until farm workers and poor communities enjoy the rights to respect and dignity to which they are entitled, the union federation said on Monday.
Spokesperson Patrick Craven said Cosatu would highlight the plight of the many thousands of South Africans still denied, in practise, the rights they are promised on paper.
”From a regime which denied the majority any rights we have built a society based on a Constitution and laws which are built on a foundation of respect for human rights. However, in our rural areas in particular, many farm workers and their families are treated with no more respect than during the apartheid years.
”They are paid poverty wages, forced to work excessive hours, have to live in slums and can be summarily dismissed and thrown out of their homes. Far too many are still physically assaulted and even murdered by farm employers who show contempt for human rights.”
In a statement to mark Human Rights Day, Cosatu also condemned the ”total absence of all human rights in our neighbouring country of Swaziland”.
On Swaziland, Craven said: ”Recent arrests of political opponents on trumped-up charges of high treason once more exposed the dictatorial character of this regime.” — Sapa