Mass rejections of Zimbabwe asylum applications in South Africa

By Tichaona Sibanda
06 April 2006

The Zimbabwe Civic Society Organisation based in South Africa has launched a scathing attack on the asylum system, accusing officials in the Home Affairs ministry of a ‘staggering’ lack of knowledge about human rights abuses.

Sox Chikohwero, vice-chairman of the organisation, said an analysis of asylum rejection letters showed startling ignorance of the situation in Zimbabwe. Each week a hundred new applications for asylum by Zimbabweans are rejected simply on the basis that there is no war in the country.

‘As it is, up to 400 applications from Zimbabwe per month are being wrongly refused because immigration officials state there is no war in Zimbabwe,’ said Chikohwero.

He said this was a wrong interpretation of the United Nations Act on the classification of refugees. As defined in the 1951 UN convention relating to status of refugees, a refugee is defined as a person who is forced to flee their home due to persecution, whether on an individual basis or as part of a mass exodus due to political, religious, military or other problems.

He said human rights lawyers working with Zimbabwe asylum seekers have also attacked the South African government over the way applications are being turned down.

Many applications are being rejected in a standard circular letter without any explanation of why the application has been refused. Before, asylum seekers used to receive comprehensive letters setting out why their applications had been turned down.

Asylum seekers now receive much shorter letters stating that their reasons for seeking refugee status in South Africa are unfounded and that there is no war in Zimbabwe.

Chikohwero cited his own case where, with the support of newspaper cuttings, medical reports and graphic pictures of himself soon after he was tortured, authorities in Johannesburg still denied him asylum because his ‘reasons were unfounded.’

‘This is sheer incompetence on the part of the immigration officials and basic natural justice insists that they should all go on a course run by the United Nations and learn how to define refugee,’ he said.

He added: ‘There is a very clear procedure. Every individual application has to be processed and considered separately. But what you get now is one refusal letter being copied and sent out to a dozen people.’