• • these days. Rather, people can sit inside the building instead of on the pavement for hours, and then be ejected without processing at the end of the day. We could not independently verify this by speaking to somebody that had been through this, but heard it from multiple sources including South African lawyers. At the Rosettenville RRO in October 2004, we were informed by those in line that for the previous three weeks running, no new claims for ASPs had been issued, with the reason being given that the “computers were down.” By 10.30 am on the day we were there, not a single new ASP had been processed, and the rumour in the queue was that the computers were down again, for the fourth week running, although no Home Affairs official had bothered to clarify this situation by mid morning. Human rights lawyers confirmed that the “computers are down” is a constant excuse for not processing ASPs. One lawyer told us that during 2003 there had been several consecutive months when not a single ASP had been issued on Tuesdays, when Zimbabweans are there. Excuses had included the computers being down, and the person with the keys to the safe being out of the office, week after week. Identification papers In order to be given an ASP, refugees do not have to produce formal identification. The Refugee Act accepts that if a person is being persecuted and has to flee in adverse conditions, it is not always possible to cross borders with a passport or other form of identification to hand. Nationality and precise identity are subject to confirmation through a process of interviewing by Home Affairs. Of course it simplifies the process of identification if the asylum seeker can produce photo identity of a credible nature, but it is illegal to deny persons the right to even proceed with their claim if they cannot do so.95 Yet we were informed by dozens of would-be asylum seekers that they had been turned away from queues outside the reception office in Johannesburg because they could not produce a passport. This is clearly in violation of South Africa’s Refugee Act. The Head of Immigration in Braamfontein denied in an interview in October 2003 that his employees insisted on passports from Zimbabwean refugees, saying they only needed some form of ID, but to insist on ID is also not legal. In spite of this official denial, when the authors were themselves outside reception offices in Johannesburg, Home Affairs officials came down the line saying they were only looking for people with passports.96 The 2003 National Refugee Base Line Survey, which deals with refugees from other nations excluding Zimbabwe, noted around 49% of their respondents faced barriers in gaining an ASP. In relation to the Johannesburg/Braamfontein office this study found: 35% of those who reported barriers, claimed problems in accessing the RRO 35% “ “ reported paying bribes 95 Proving identity without a passport can be problematic. Prospective refugees cannot approach their embassy in South Africa for help in establishing nationality, as if they do so this is taken as evidence that they are not afraid of their home government if they can approach its officials. Yet the South African authorities can approach the same potentially hostile embassy officials for proof of identity in order to deport people to the right country, effectively informing these officials that a particular person is about to be deported. 96 CASE, November 2003, op cit, reports that asylum seekers from other parts of Africa excluding Zimbabwe reported “not having documents from their home country” as a barrier to receiving ASPs in only 3% of cases. In our observation, the issue of “no documents” is being used to discriminate against Zimbabweans in a higher percentage of cases in the Johannesburg RRO. 43