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Protesters march against the wave of xenophobic attacks in Khayelitsha township near Cape Town, May 31, 2008 [File: Mark Wessels/Reuters]
Sleeping was not an option for Syed in early September of last year.
For three days and three nights, the owner of the Bangladeshi store in central Johannesburg said he had to stand guard to protect his store during an outbreak of xenophobic violence in which rioters threw stones and other objects at him and other businessmen from area.
Syed said the merchants had called the police, but only showed up on the third day. By then, more than 1,000 Bangladeshi stores were looted, he added.
His account is one of dozens included in a report released Thursday by Human Rights Watch (HRW), which documents mob attacks against migrant communities in South Africa by people who are angry at the dire economic and living conditions they are facing. experimenting.
According to the findings of the HRW report, xenophobic harassment and violence against other Africans and Asians living in the country are routine and sometimes deadly.
Foreigners are scapegoats and are blamed for economic insecurity, crime, and government failures to deliver services, according to the report. Non-South Africans are also accused of stealing jobs and women, depleting the country’s basic services, spreading disease, and running criminal unions.
“The xenophobic actions constitute a betrayal of the South African constitutional promise,” said Kristie Ueda, a researcher at HRW and author of the report.
“The constitution promises human dignity and not racism. Non-nationals come to South Africa because there is a promise that they will live in freedom and equality. But this idea has been betrayed, “he added, referring to the” general trend of indifference “towards victims of xenophobic incidents.
“This sometimes takes the form of outright denial and sometimes even the form of tacit approval.”
‘Fire and blood’
At least 12 people died and thousands were displaced in a week of violence from September 2-9 when foreign-owned businesses were looted in different parts of Johannesburg. The riots were accompanied by protests calling on foreigners to leave.
HRW said interviewees sent WhatsApp text messages and voicemails they had received in the days leading up to the violence that threatened to turn “deadly” and that “there will be fire and blood” if the foreigners don’t leave.
It was far from the first incident of its kind in recent years. In 2017, violent anti-immigrant protests broke out in the capital Pretoria, while in 2015 another wave of xenophobic attacks in different parts of the country killed several people and displaced thousands.
Angela Mudukuti, a Zimbabwean human rights lawyer, said: “Xenophobia affects all black foreigners in South Africa.
It permeates every layer of society creating a unique hostile society that only drives a wedge between the rest of the continent and South Africa. “
Raids of documentation and falsifications
For its report, HRW interviewed 51 people, including victims, lawyers and activists between March 2019 and March 2020 in the Western Cape, Gauteng and Kwazulu-Natal provinces, the areas most affected by xenophobic violence since the end of apartheid. in 1994 through 2018. according to the Xenowatch monitoring group.
Non-South Africans interviewed by HRW also said that the government and law enforcement officials have used counterfeit products and document raids to cover up harassment and xenophobic attacks.
They believe their stores have been disproportionately targeted by authorities conducting raids, during which police have used tear gas and rubber bullets, according to the report.
The police raided stores suspected of selling counterfeit products with the aim of destroying or removing them from the market.
But while the government says such operations protect the local economy and jobs, merchants and vendors in central Johannesburg told HRW that the police sold them the confiscated goods after looting their stores.
Al Jazeera reached out to the Department of Internal Affairs for comment, but has not received a response as of press time.
On January 14, Aaron Motsoaledi, then Minister of Health and current Minister of the Interior, said: “We are not xenophobic as a department and as a country.”
Plan to combat xenophobia
In March 2019, the government launched the National Action Plan to Combat Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (NAP).
The aim of the five-year plan is to improve the protection of foreigners and their access to justice, as well as to increase public awareness and understanding of xenophobia.
The NAP recommends creating mechanisms to ensure that foreigners receive the services to which they are entitled, facilitating their integration and adopting a humane and dignified approach to the management of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.
Still, xenophobic violence has continued into the plan’s first year of existence.
“The NAP is more of a description of the problem with very broad and vague recommendations for anti-bias initiatives.
It is not a series of programs with budgets, “said Steven Gordon, principal investigator of the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), denouncing the” lack of measurable instruments that can be said to be implemented. “
Commenting on HRW’s findings, Gordon said that what is particularly striking is their similarity to the documentations included in a report published by HRW in 1998.
“Many of the problems are the same,” he said. “For example, the issue of the government underestimating the problem and problems faced by vulnerable migrants such as refugees and asylum seekers, as well as the institutional resistance of officials.”
Sharon Ekambaram, director of the Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) refugee and migrant rights program, which runs walk-in clinics for refugees and migrants in several cities, described South Africa’s asylum system as “flawed.”
Ekambaram said that over the past year the refugee reception office in Musina, a city in Limpopo province, had a 100 percent rejection rate from asylum seekers and people seeking refugee status. “The quality of decision-making by officials is based on xenophobia,” argued Ekambaram.
According to Ekambaram, xenophobic sentiments are spreading more and more through social media.
Certain statements by politicians have also exacerbated the problem, he said, referring to a November 2018 statement by Motsoaledi that South Africa’s health system is “overloaded” by foreign nationals.
“The government denies xenophobia in our country. You have to recognize that hatred of foreigners is feeding into communities. There have to be consequences for those who loot and attack, ”he said.
Ueda, for his part, recommended urgent measures to improve the situation of foreigners. “One barrier to basic services is getting the proper documentation.
The government should extend the validity of an asylum seeker permit to alleviate the challenges foreigners face with document renewal. “
Other HRW recommendations include formal monitoring of the implementation of the PAN and the establishment of an accountability mechanism, as well as that the government acknowledge the existence of xenophobia in public statements.
