20100630
allafrica

Johannesburg — THE South African Human Rights Commission is gearing up to detect threats of xenophobic violence with the launch yesterday of a project that would assist foreigners to access legal support.

The Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in SA (Cormsa) warned last month that foreigners living in SA would be targeted for attack after the World Cup.

The organisation also called on authorities to develop a law and policy to address crimes motivated by prejudice, along with introducing a dedicated toll-free line to receive such reports.

Commission chairman Lawrence Mushwana said the commission would form a task team to help xenophobia victims to access legal support and to investigate complaints from victims, particularly about mistreatment from the police.

"We have learnt a lot from the 2008 attacks.

"We are ready and we will be on high alert to assist the police to track down any threats. We have set up a reactive unit to investigate those threats," he said.

After the wave of xenophobic attacks in which at least 62 people were killed, both the commission and the government were blamed for their slow, fragmented responses.

Civil society groups also laid a strongly worded complaint against the Pretoria office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, resulting in a formal inquiry that laid the blame on a misunderstanding of the agency's role.

Yesterday the high commissioner's regional representative, Yanine Poc, said the agency had committed more than R763 000 to implement the year-long project.

"We are happy that we have finalised the project documentation and satisfied that it would be able to handle issues related to legal support and handling of complaints along with measures to protect the rights of non-nationals and prevent violence against them," Ms Poc said.