Amnesty International South Africa is demanding that the authorities rein in vigilante groups preying on migrants, shopkeepers and neighborhoods. The abuse, the group says, turns on nationality or on whether someone looks undocumented: illegal demands for identity papers, intimidation, forced eviction from homes and businesses, public shaming.
The statement, released August 4, documents a graver pattern: officers marching alongside protesters have watched as suspected undocumented migrants are dragged from their homes while their belongings are wrecked or looted. The shame barrier is eroding too; clips circulating online show conduct once considered out of bounds now accepted, sometimes applauded.
Dignity has no nationality
The failure of the state to act decisively against these groups has created a dangerous impression that people have the right to violate the rights of others simply because of their nationality or perceived immigration status, said Shenilla Mohamed, the group’s executive director. She conceded that the government has spoken out against illegal ID checks and vigilante behavior, but said the practices continue: authorities must move beyond statements of concern and demonstrate through effective investigations, prosecutions and accountability measures that no person or group is above the law. Her summation was that human dignity has no nationality and the country cannot allow the unfettered violation of rights to continue.
The law is clear; the enforcement is not
The legal position is unambiguous. The Immigration Act bars private individuals and groups from enforcing immigration rules, checking documents, entering property, or throwing people out of their homes and businesses. The only people entitled to do these things are immigration officers and police. When private actors do it anyway, Amnesty argues, the state ends up lending its visible authority to a parallel system of enforcement, and that is how abuse becomes normal.
The group’s demands follow from the law: investigate claims of police failure or complicity, open disciplinary and criminal cases where wrongdoing appears, and trade statements for prosecutions. It insists that even people found to be undocumented keep their constitutional and international guarantees, among them due process, dignity, and safety from violence, and that their status be settled through lawful procedure, not mobs.
The warning lands at a volatile moment. Anti-migrant protests built toward an unlawful June 30 ultimatum by the March and March movement, which ordered undocumented foreigners to leave; the deadline passed and the marches did not stop. Local reporting has followed the movement from the inside: a Daily Maverick feature on a day inside an anti-foreigner march carried the warning that marchers might smash your windshield, and on July 12 the government appealed to protesters to stop the raids, as News24 reported. In late June, Malawian migrants were photographed waiting to be processed for deportation in Durban. On July 31, Pretoria pushed regional migration talks after fresh xenophobic violence. The 2008 pogroms killed 62 people, and Amnesty and its allies have said for years that heated rhetoric, anti-migrant organizing and a passive state invite a repeat.
The framing is deliberately wide, because the rights at stake are not the migrants’ alone. Shopkeepers, Amnesty notes, may run their businesses without being hounded or shut down. Every person in the country, citizen or foreigner, documented or not, holds rights to dignity, freedom and security. Even someone whose status is unlawful is a rights-holder while that status is determined.
The constitution itself, Mohamed reminded, rests on dignity, equality and the rule of law. These principles must be protected for everyone. The question is whether the state will enforce them against the people enforcing them on its streets.