South Africa has withdrawn an order to accept more asylum applications following rioting during which cars were torched and shops looted, and the government warned that processing staff were “at risk.”
Riots broke out after the country’s Constitutional Court ruled that asylum applications should be considered from people even if they entered South Africa illegally, did not declare their intention to seek asylum at the border, or did not report to a refugee reception office (RRO) within five days as required by law.
People gathered in the city of Durban and in parts of Johannesburg on Thursday to demonstrate against the ruling, with local media reporting that crowds stormed “spaza shops” (small, often informal convenience stores) run by foreigners and set fire to at least 24 vehicles.
South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs, which had opposed the Constitutional Court’s order, announced on Friday that it would halt implementing the new policy because of “serious consequences that could not have been foreseen.”
It said refugee operations were “overwhelmed within a matter of days since the directive was issued, Home Affairs officials were placed at risk, and that serious threats to public safety and order had emerged.”
The department added that it would “embark on a fresh process” to come up with a new approach to comply with the order.
Like many countries in the West, immigration has become a contentious issue in South Africa, with people most often arriving from neighboring countries such as Zimbabwe and Malawi.
Tensions there have repeatedly led to riots in recent years, with the violence sometimes turning deadly. At least four people were killed during anti-foreigner protesters in Durban earlier this year.
Newsweek contacted South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs on Friday for comment.
Violent Protests Erupt
On September 28, the Department of Home Affairs ordered Refugee Reception Offices to start implementing the Constitutional Court’s July order, opening the already-strained asylum process to people who would have previously been unable to apply.
Multiple protests took place in the days that followed, along with acts of intimidation and vigilantism before the unrest escalated into violence in Durban’s city center and Johannesburg’s Soweto township on Thursday.
At least 15 stick-wielding protesters harassed asylum seekers waiting in line at an immigration center in Durban on Tuesday, according to local outlet GroundUp. Police had to form a barrier outside the building to keep demonstrators from entering the area.
Bihh Mutombo told GroundUp how he came to South Africa 12 years ago after fleeing the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has been rocked by war for around three decades. He said he left all of his family behind, adding: “I don’t know if there’s anyone left there.”
By Thursday, riot police had to be deployed to the city center in Durban after shops were looted and firefighters were called to battle blazes.
Three foreign nationals were arrested on suspicion of attacking a protester and breaking their neck, KwaZulu-Natal police spokesperson Colonel Robert Netshiunda told state broadcaster SABC.
In Soweto, Johannesburg, community leader Tshepo Mposula said the demonstration outside Home Affairs started peacefully but shifted when protesters started trying to shut down shops run by foreign nationals.
He alleged that foreign nationals fired gun shots at one point, which local police spokesperson Xolani Fihla said had been reported to the force. Fihla said later Thursday that while the “situation is a bit tense…it has died down from the earlier violence.”
Inside the New Asylum Policy
In July, South Africa’s Constitutional Court ruled that blocking access to asylum “solely due to their non-compliance with procedural requirements” was unconstitutional.
Under South Africa’s asylum process, an applicant must enter the country at an official border crossing where they can get an asylum transit visa that is valid for five days, intended to give people time to report to the nearest RROs. From there, applicants are issued a second visa that gives them the right to remain in the country while a final decision on their claim is made.
The Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town, which helps migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, argued that denying someone the right to apply for asylum because they did not follow the procedure exposes people to deportation without authorities first assessing whether they would face serious harm.
“Asylum seekers are often indigent and vulnerable persons with no familiarity with South African law or immigration processes, and often without proficiency in a South African language,” the center argued. “Asylum seekers thus often act in simple ignorance of what they are meant to do.”
The Department of Home Affairs argued that doing away with the requirement for procedure to be followed would “undermine effective regulation of migration and erode the state’s capacity to exercise sovereign authority over its borders.”
But the court sided with Scalabrini, saying exclusion for procedural non-compliance “prevents asylum seekers from accessing a merits-based assessment of their claims.”
The order grants access to the asylum process for someone’s claims to be assessed, but it does not mean they are automatically given refugee status.
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Matthew Cannon and Dave Siminoff.
Source: www.newsweek.com
