'Why Are We So Angry? is a six-part documentary series which explores the underlying issues contributing to what seems to be a collective anger amongst South Africans. This repressed anger, in turn, is now manifesting itself in many different ways in our society.

Fahamu is commissioning an evaluation of its pilot Pan African Fellowship Program. The evaluation will establish the extent to which the initiative contributed to the strengthening of social justice activism in Kenya by developing the knowledge and experiences of fellows who are community based activists, their affiliate organisations and movements, the host organisations and others who were involved in the program. Interested individuals are requested to send in their applications for consideration as Consultants by close of business on Wednesday May 2, 2012.

The April 2012 issue of the Fahamu Refugee Legal Aid Newsletter is now available on our .

In this issue:

- ‘We are in hell’: Legal aid needed for detained asylum seekers in Romania
- Legal aid battles in the Lords: a report from the United Kingdom
- Country of Origin specialists: engaging at what cost?
- ‘Experts’ in the asylum process: are good intentions good enough?
- Court injunction forbids Israel from deporting South Sudanese
- Update: Syrian refugees in Turkey
- Syrian men barred from leaving country without military approval
- More resettlement places in Europe?
- Court rules conditions in Dadaab to be ‘inhuman and degrading’
- Canadian government to include Mexico on ‘Safe Country of Origin’ list
- Mock trial for Europe aims to shed light on human rights
- Petition: Support Refugee Action’s ‘Access to Justice’ initiative
- Petition: Campaign to save North Korean refugees in China from refoulement

Also in this issue: Announcements; Country of Origin and legal news; Deportation news; Requests; Resources; Publications; Vacancies & Opportunities; Calls for papers; Conferences and courses.

Leading a dedicated team to accompany the development and implementation of campaign strategies led by progressive African social justice movements, the Utetezi Director will support innovative strategies to amplify grassroots demands and realize people-centred change.

Former President Benjamin Mkapa put up a spirited defence for the decision of his third phase administration to privatise state firms, at a public forum held in Dar es Salaam. He told participants at the fourth Mwalimu Nyerere Professorial chair that the poor performance of the firms was due to bad management, in reaction to accusations directed at him personally from some participants. Mkapa said during his time in office when he decided to adopt the privatisation, some 386 state owned industries were privatised, 180 of which were sold to locals. According to Mr Mkapa, all the 386 companies have since collapsed due to what he termed as bad management.

The continued theft of large quantities of diamonds by dealers and cartels is a threat to national security and may undermine the work of the inclusive government in Zimbabwe.

Equality Now and the Movement for Solidarity for African Women’s Rights (SOAWR) recently produced “A Guide to Using the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa for Legal Action.” The Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa is renowned for its strong and comprehensive provisions on women’s rights. The how-to guide aims to equip activists with strong tools to protect and advance women’s rights at the local, national, and regional levels.

The guide is on the SOAWR .

To learn more about Equality Now and its work promoting the rights of women, please see its website (in English, French, and Arabic).

On a related note, on March 9, 2012, Cote d’Ivoire ratified the Protocol. For a map of African countries that have signed and ratified the Protocol, please see the SOAWR website.

Zille's comments brought back memories of the Afro-phobic attacks of 2008; but this time, invoking such phobia between people already living in South Africa.

Monday 16 April, 7 - 9pm, Amnesty International UK Human Rights Action Centre, 17-25 New Inn Yard, London EC2A 3EA.

This is a podcast prepared by Mbonisi Zikhali based on the launch of the African Awakenings book that we held last night in Ottawa hosted by Octopus Books, Inter Pares, Carlton University and Friends of Pambazuka.

There has been a development and shift away from privatisation as the dominant strategy towards the so-called corporatisation and commercialisation of public water services. The main purpose of this report is to analyse the strategic development in policy that has taken place, the World Bank's neoliberal strategy on corporatisation of urban water services and concrete case studies of corporatisation projects in Sub-Saharan Africa as examples of this strategy.

Oil transparency activists have vowed to continue a legal battle to require the government of Uganda to publish Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs) that it has reached with international oil companies. This comes after a court rejected an application from the African Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO) and three other civil society organisations for permission to present evidence at an appeal by two journalists against a separate ruling which denied them access to the PSAs.

Between 1-4 April, hundreds of Sierra Leonean small land owners and community members from all over the country will come together in Freetown to organize against land grabs. Join the Oakland Institute in our pledge to raise $10,000 to fund travel, food, and lodging for 100 participants.

The East Africa Association of Grantmakers (EAAG) is elated to announce the call for nominations for the inaugural East Africa Philanthropy Awards (EAPA) 2012. Launched in 2011, the Awards seek to identify, recognize and celebrate outstanding contributions of individuals and organizations to strategic social development and to the growth of the philanthropic movement in East Africa.

Senegal's political transition will be affected by its response to the youth. Nearly 44 per cent of the population is under the age of 15. Like many other African countries, Senegal will need to find ways to address the challenges facing the majority of the populace – typically employed in agriculture – while also addressing young people's needs, says this article on The Guardian UK blog.

The report contrasts the UK government’s preferred approach of ‘food security’, based on free markets supplemented by aid, with the positive alternative of food sovereignty, which returns control over the food system to farmers. It shows how the government has driven a free trade agenda at the international level, while pressing countries to remove social protections that would reduce suffering. Far from relieving hunger among the world’s poorest, the Department for International Development (DFID) funds development of new crop technologies that deepen farmers’ reliance on those companies’ seed and agrochemicals at ever greater prices, leading to hunger on an unprecedented scale.

Kenya is gearing up for a revision of its energy policy to establish a regulatory system for overseeing the potential opening of the country's first private-sector nuclear power plant. Despite warnings that the world's nuclear waste is growing at alarming rates and with most of the current facilities having outlived their usefulness, a director of a government board said several Kenyan scientists were already receiving training.

Pambazuka Press is able to offer three months' unpaid work experience to a part-time, Oxford-based volunteer who would like to gain experience of working in a small, hard-working publishing team, mainly on marketing and promotions.

'People determined to reclaim their dignity through art and free expression cannot be stopped.'

The intersection between the internet and human rights, including freedoms of expression and association, is increasingly important as the internet becomes more universal, and increasingly complex as the internet affects more aspects of society, economy, politics and culture. This report suggests two ways to map this intersection, and raises a number of questions that need to be considered by those concerned with the internet, with rights, and with wider public policy.