Home Affairs: From National To International Embarassment
The Department of Homa Affairs has long been a source of national embarassment. From having our passports downgraded to near junk status to people resorting to taking hostages to get their ID books to the Minister of Home Affairs having to ask the Finance Department to investigate the shenanigans in her own departments accounting, Home Affairs has been possibly the worst performing government department.
However now it seems Home Affairs might embarass the South African government on a much more international stage. It seems that the deportation of Khalid Rashid, who was deported on the 6th November 2005 to unnamed Pakistani authorities, looks like it may be illegal. Zehir Omar, who is the advocate leading the search for what happened to Rashid, has indicated that he will be bringing the case to the International Criminal Court.
This could turn out to be very embarassing for Mbeki for two reasons. Firstly abducting people and shipping them overseas in the dead of night is not something you would expect from one of the oft described ‘most liberal democracies on the planet’. Secondly the South African government has not exactly been a supporter of the US led “Global War on Terror” but again their actions in this case seem to indicate they’re more than happy to oblige.
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