UN Human Rights Committee Reviews South Africa

The UN Human Rights Committee have released their concluding observations on South Africa’s human-rights record following a review session held in Switzerland in early March. South Africa is being reviewed as it is one of the states that has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

In 2011, PEN South Africa submitted a comment on the climate of human rights in South Africa, which can be read here.

Right2Know, Privacy International, and the Association for Progressive Communications submitted a joint report on surveillance and privacy issues in South Africa in June 2015, which can be read here, as well as a follow-up report last month.

South Africa’s replies to the full list of issues submitted can be read here. R2K and journalism professor Jane Duncan tweeted during the review, in which John Jeffery, South Africa’s Deputy Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, was asked to respond to the concerns over surveillance and privacy:

Following the review in Switzerland the UN Human Rights Committee shared their concluding observations on South Africa and the other countries under review in that session here. The Committee’s specific findings on South Africa can be downloaded here.

R2K have welcomed the Committee’s “hard-hitting” findings on South Africa and have listed the findings relating to surveillance and privacy here.

PEN South African and PEN International will be submitting a second report in September 2016.