Concern over anti-terrorism bill

International rights group, Amnesty International said this week that it was concerned about the proposed anti-terrorism bill, and has called on the South Afican government to “re-think” the proposed legislation. “If the law in its present form is enacted, it will place South Africa in breach of its international and regional obligations and may lead to human rights violations”, the organisation said.

It said that it would give the government “what are in effect emergency powers, without any of the safeguards provided for under national and international law when there is a formal declaration of a state of emergency.” Amnesty expressed concern that certain provisions in the draft law, particularly those allowing for detention without charge or trial, carry a risk of a repetition of part of South Africa’s past pattern of human rights violations. It said it shared the South African Law Commission’s concern that South Africa had “a terrible history of abuse in
detention” in the apartheid era and that this history had to be kept in view in considering any “measures to be implemented in combating terrorism”.

Amnesty said that it “acknowledged” that the South African Government was faced with a very serious security situation, primarily in the Western Cape province. “While Amnesty International condemns deliberate and arbitrary killings or threats of violence by armed opposition groups, the solution to the problems in the Western Cape should not involve passing new laws which would seriously affect fundamental human rights guaranteed under South Africa’s own Constitution and the international human rights treaties ratified by South Africa, including most recently the Rome Treaty for the International Criminal Court,” the statement said.