South Africans lobby British government over visa refusal

A group of concerned South African citizens has sent a letter to Britain’s Home Secretary following the refusal of a visa for a well-known academic who applied to visit the United Kingdom. Theresa May has been asked if this this incident is part of a trend of South Africans being profiled in particular ways and being refused entry, even when they have good reasons for their proposed visit and there are no reasons for the catch-all “national security grounds” refusal.

Writing under the umbrella of “Concerned Africans’ Forum”, which counts a number of senior politicians, diplomats, academics, NGO and media personalities among its membership, the approach has been prompted by the British government’s rejection of a visa application by Na’eem Jeenah, the executive director of the Johannesburg-based Afro-Middle East Centre think tank. The centre’s publications and programmes are engaged with by a wide range of political and civil society actors in South Africa and the Middle East. Jeenah is also a board member of the Denis Hurley Peace Institute, an organisation that is part of the South African Catholic Bishops’ Conference. He was previously a lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand, and worked as Operations Director for the Freedom of Expression Institute, an active NGO that seeks to protect free expression and media rights in Southern Africa.

His visa refusal follows a recent incident when South African author Ishtiyaq Shukri was detained at Heathrow Airport and deported when he tried to enter Britain to visit his wife, who is a British citizen. Shukri himself had permanent residence in the UK, a status that he has now been stripped of.

Jeenah applied for a visa to visit Britain in October last year, in order to attend a conference organised by the European Council on Foreign Relations. After a wait of six months, the application was denied on what the signatories of the letter regard as “spurious” grounds.

Although the original letter to the Home Secretary was signed by 40 prominent South African citizens, a subsequent petition attracted the support of 200 people from around the world, as well as South Africa. They include a number of politicians and former politicians (including a former British cabinet member), a former constitutional court judge, a judge of the High Court, and scores of academics who have been angered by this action against a fellow academic. Former South African ministers and ambassadors are among the signatories, including Ronnie Kasrils, Ismail Coovadia and Aziz Pahad, the current Presidential Envoy to the Middle East.