Articles for GroundUp Staff

Metrorail detains customers without tickets. Is it legal?

Metrorail security guards have been holding passengers found without tickets. For example, on Steenberg station, commuters are ushered into a cage on the platform and told they will be held until they pay.

GroundUp Staff

News | 23 February 2015

ANC calls for “deregistration of TAC”

The ANC Youth League Free State has called for the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) to be deregistered. This follows TAC's "Fire Benny" campaign, which calls for the dismissal of the province's Health MEC Benny Malakoane.

Nathan Geffen and GroundUp Staff

News | 19 February 2015

After the SONA: questions for President Zuma

President Zuma's State of the Nation Address was thin on detail. Here are a list of questions that we suggest Members of Parliament could ask, so that people living in South Africa will be better informed.

GroundUp Staff

Analysis | 13 February 2015

Call for deregistration of Jewish students receives uncompromising response from vice-chancellor

In a strongly worded response to a memorandum received from the Student Representative Council (SRC) and the Progressive Youth Alliance at the Durban University of Technology, vice-chancellor Ahmed Bawa has written that it is "outrageous, preposterous and a deep violation of our National Constitution and every human rights principle" for these organisations to have demanded the deregistration of Jewish students.

GroundUp Staff

Brief | 11 February 2015

Struggle for justice receives financial boost

A new fund worth $25 million (R284 million) was announced at the District 6 Museum in Cape Town today. It will support organisations that are working to “advance constitutionalism”.

GroundUp Staff

News | 5 February 2015

Farm worker union funding target reached

With only hours to go before the cut-off time, farm workers union Csaawu (Commercial, Stevedoring, Agricultural and Allied Workers Union) has raised the target amount of R115,000 in its first phase of online crowd funding. The money will go towards paying for legal costs incurred for defending dismissed farm workers in the Cape Town Labour Court last year.

GroundUp Staff

Brief | 2 February 2015

“Silence must not be allowed to win”

Today GroundUp publishes this image in solidarity with journalists all over the world following the attack in Paris on ​the staff of ​Charlie Hebdo, in which ten journalists and two police officers were killed.

GroundUp Staff

News | 7 January 2015

South Africa gets its first chess grandmaster

Kenny Solomon from Mitchell's Plain has become the first South African to attain the coveted chess title of grandmaster.

GroundUp Staff

Brief | 7 January 2015

Snatched baby back at home

When 38-year old Khayelitsha mother Nomveliso Semsem was told that her 12 day old baby was missing from Groote Schuur hospital's maternity ward, she didn't believe the nurses until the police arrived at her bedside.

GroundUp Staff

News | 5 January 2015

Text of EFF interdict

On 23 December Judge Dennis Davis delivered an oral judgment in the case between the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and the speaker of the National Assembly. Here is the text of that judgment.

GroundUp Staff

Brief | 1 January 2015

Ebola, Lwandle and large fish: 2014 in photos

This was the year after Madiba died. We reported many tragic stories and breaches of human rights. But we also showed moments of happiness, beauty and dignity. Here is some of the best GroundUp photography and reporting of 2014.

GroundUp Staff

News | 22 December 2014

Empty medicine shelves of Gauteng hospital

Gauteng hospitals are suffering severe medicine stockouts. Here are photos that GroundUp has obtained of the empty shelves of a pharmacy in a Gauteng tertiary hospital. All the medicines shown (or, to be more precise, not shown) are used to treat psychiatric conditions.

GroundUp Staff

News | 12 December 2014

Life-saving AIDS medicine out of stock in Gauteng

Hospitals throughout Gauteng ran out of essential medicines in recent weeks, including a life-saving drug for people with AIDS called amphotericin B.

Daneel Knoetze and GroundUp staff

News | 9 December 2014

Donors respond generously to GroundUp article on sanitary pads

In November, GroundUp published an article on learners using socks and all manner of items as sanitary pads. Donations have been streaming in to the GroundUp offices ever since. These will be distributed to schools.

GroundUp staff

Brief | 2 December 2014

World Aids Day: TAC still needed

About 200 people gathered at The Orbit in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, on World Aids Day in support of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC). The TAC is trying to raise R30million for 2015 in order to continue doing its work.

GroundUp Staff

Brief | 1 December 2014

Twist in Angy Peter trial: None of the accused will go to prison

Angy Peter, her husband Isaac Mbadu, Azola Dayimani and Christopher Dina will not get prison sentences. They have also been given bail. Dayimani and Dina were released today. Peter and Mbadu are expected to be released from Pollsmoor tomorrow.

GroundUp Staff

News | 27 November 2014