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MEDIA ADVISORY
For Immediate Release
Date: 16 October 2025
People’s Hearing to Highlight Attacks and Threats on South Africa’s Human Rights Defenders
22 October 2025 | Women’s Jail, Constitution Hill | Johannesburg
Johannesburg, South Africa. The Life After Coal campaign, a coalition of Earthlife Africa, groundWork, and the Centre for Environmental Rights (CER) will convene a strategic People’s Hearing for Human Rights Defenders on 22 October 2025 at the Women’s Jail, Constitution Hill in Johannesburg, as part of the Defend Our Defenders campaign.
Community activists and human rights defenders are increasingly under siege, across South Africa. From Xolobeni (Eastern Cape) to Somkhele, Makhasaneni, and Mzumbe (KwaZulu-Natal), whistleblowers, community leaders, and activists continue to stand up to powerful state and corporate interests often at great personal risk.
Human Rights Defenders play an integral role in our democracy. Their safety and wellbeing should be protected. Instead, Human Rights Defenders are being killed with impunity. Activists working in all sectors of civil society are being subjected to threats of violence and intimidation by both state and non-state actors. Women, land rights activists and environmental rights defenders are at particular risk.
The People’s Hearing will bring together civil society leaders, grassroots activists, and legal experts to hear first-hand testimonies from human rights defenders on the frontlines and the fencelines of fossil fuel extractors. The hearing will expose systemic failures, including South Africa’s lack of legislative protection for human rights defenders, and the impunity enjoyed by perpetrators of attacks, contamination and destruction of lands, water, local infrastructure and livelihoods.
Communities will share their testimonies before a jury panel composed of Advocate Louisa Zondo, Prof Tsepo Madlingozi and Mary de Haas will hear them. The human rights programme will spotlight the lived experiences of Human Rights Defenders and activists from affected regions. Through these powerful narratives, the hearing aims to illuminate the daily realities of their courageous struggles for justice, dignity, and environmental protection.
The event aims to:
Amplify the voices of human rights defenders and communities under threat.
Raise public awareness and mobilise solidarity.
Push for concrete policy and legislative reforms to ensure accountability and protection.
This is a critical moment for the media to listen, hear and act, bearing witness to the stories of those who refuse to be silenced.
Event Details (See attached poster)
What: People’s Hearing for Human Rights Defenders
Date: 22 October 2025
Time: 09:00 – 18:00
Venue: Women’s Jail, Constitution Hill, Johannesburg
For Media Enquiries and Accreditation
Tsepang Molefe – groundWork Media Campaigner
or
Jabulani Sithole – Life After Coal – Communications Coordinator
