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Recent Detentions in South Africa Recent Detentions in South Africa http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.nuun1976_38 Use of the Aluka digital library is subject to Aluka’s Terms and Conditions, available at http://www.aluka.org/page/about/termsConditions.jsp. By using Aluka, you agree that you have read and will abide by the Terms and Conditions. Among other things, the Terms and Conditions provide that the content in the Aluka digital library is only for personal, non-commercial use by authorized users of Aluka in connection with research, scholarship, and education. The content in the Aluka digital library is subject to copyright, with the exception of certain governmental works and very old materials that may be in the public domain under applicable law. Permission must be sought from Aluka and/or the applicable copyright holder in connection with any duplication or distribution of these materials where required by applicable law. Aluka is a not-for-profit initiative dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of materials about and from the developing world. For more information about Aluka, please see http://www.aluka.org Recent Detentions in South Africa Alternative title Notes and Documents - United Nations Centre Against ApartheidNo. 27/76 Author/Creator United Nations Centre against Apartheid; Valderrama, Nicasio G.; Special Committee Against Apartheid Publisher United Nations, New York Date 1976-10-00 Resource type Reports Language English Subject Coverage (spatial) South Africa Coverage (temporal) 1976 Source Northwestern University Libraries Description Partial list of Black leaders and other opponents of apartheid detained under South Africa's security legislation since June 1976. Format extent 22 page(s) (length/size) http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.nuun1976_38 http://www.aluka.org NOTES AND DOCUMENTS* NOTES AND DOCUMENTS* October 1976 RECENT DETENTIONS IN SOUMh AFRICA by Mr. Nicasio G. Valderrama, Rpporteur, L, brari NOV 5 1976 Africana No. 27/76 * All material in these notes and documents may be freely reprinted. Acknowledgement, together with a copy of the publication containing the reprint, would be appreciated. Since June of this year, the international community has witnessed with horror and anger the savage attacks launched by the apartheid regime against the Black people of South Africa and other opponents of its evil policies. In its desperate effort to maintain white supremacy in spite of the rising tide of liberation which is sweeping southern Africa, that racist regime has massacred hundreds of people and detained thousands of others. Demonstrations against racist oppression met with brutal repression: the South African police have attacked, beaten and shot down demonstrators, mostly schoolchildren. The number of casualties is unknown since the regime has refused to provide a list of names of those killed. The official count, which is kept artificially low in a vain attempt to deceive world opinion, is now above 300 dead, but the actual figure is believed by people in South Africa to be at least four times higher. There are countless injured. The South African authorities have even instigated attacks against demonstrators and their leaders by tribal vigilante groups and other agents of the racist regime as part of a massive witch-hunt designed to destroy any form of opposition to, and criticism of, the regime and its policies. To this end, the regime has made full use of its detention powers under South Africa's repressive laws, in particular the recently adopted Internal Security Amendment Act, which provides for preventive detention of up to a year without review by the courts. Both the composition and the work of the review committee provided for under the Act have been kept secret. The Security Police have refused to disclose the names and numbers of people detained in recent months, with the support of the so-called Minister of Justice, who has given only the vaguest indications on the scope of the detentions. Wkstever information is available has been pieced together from newspaper accounts and reports by individuals committed to the eradication of apartheid. Even information from these sources may become unavailable if the Minister of Justice carries out his threat that he would introduce legislation barring newspapers from publishing the names of detainees. According to information available to the Special Committee against Apartheid, the number of persons known to have been detained under South Africa's security legislation in recent months is over 300. Another 5,200 persons have been arrested on criminal charges arising from the demonstrations; many of these have already been 76-18920 -2- brought to trial and sentenced to various jail terms and floggings. The attached list, therefore, which contains the names of 1T4 persons, provides only a partial picture of the extent of repressive measures that are being taken by the apartheid regime. While some of the persons included in the list have been released after a relatively short period, and others brought to trial, many are still under detention for an indeterminate period without charges. Most are believed to be held in solitary confinement, and are often subject to the most inhuman tortures, as shown by the recent death under detention of a young Black leader, Mapetla Mohapi. They are at the mercy of the authorities as regards access to relatives, friends and lawyers. Sometimes their families are unaware that they are being held. The targets of this brutal repression have been primarily the Black consciousness groups, including also cultural organizations and humanitarian groups which have been working to alleviate the misery of the African masses. The list of detainees includes members of the South African Students Organisation (SASO), the South African Students Movement (SASM), the Black People's Convention, the Black Parents' Association,* the Black Community Programme, the Black Research Institute, the Institute of Black Studies, the Black Renaissance Convention, theater and church groups, and many others. Black journalists, whose reports from the African townships exposed the apartheid regime's brutality to the eyes of the world, have been the target of particularly vicious attacks. Several Black reporters were beaten by police, had their equipment confiscated, and were eventually detained for varying periods of time. Members of the Union of Black Journalists were detained, and the Union's bulletin was permanently banned. Many Black teachers, clergymen, academics, university and high school students - indeed, much of the country's Black intelligentsia - are now under detention. The witch-hunt has included activists of the banned liberation movements, the African National Congress of South Africa and the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania. Even as popular support for the liberation movements is growing, the regime is making an all-out effort to root out sympathizers of the oppressed people: a white journalist and a white lecturer were sentenced on 30 September to 10 and 7 years in jail respectively for allegedly conspiring with the African National Congress of South Africa; the wife of one, 8 months pregnant, was sentenced to 12 months ( of which 11 months were conditionally suspended). -3- Their only crime had been to publish and distribute pamphlets supporting the aims of the African National Congress of South Africa. The apartheid regime has found its own brutal solution for the growing popular resistance: to speed up the implementation of apartheid while trying to destroy the future leadership of a free South Africa. Willingness to work within the system is no longer a pass to safety: the Reverend Allan Hendrickse, National Chairman of the (Coloured) Labour Party, has been under detention for several weeks now under the Internal Security Act. Mr. Mathabathe, Headmaster of a Soweto school and a member of the officially recognized "Committee of 30" which was negotiating with the regime on behalf of the people of Soweto, was also detained. The entire executive of the opposition Democratic Party in the Transkei, which had rejected the mock "independence" imposed by the regime, was detained a few weeks before the scheduled "elections". The apartheid regime mistakenly believes that it can suppress resistance by more violence and brutality and by more killings and arrests; that the world will become insensitive to its daily acts of brutality; and that it need only to rely on its friends abroad to protect it from the wrath of the international community and from the full force of the provisions of the United Nations Charter and the relevant General Assembly and Security Council resolutions. oI. ) - Partial list of Black leaders and other opponents of apartheid detained under South Africa's security legislation since June 1976 ABDULAH, Mr. Ismail APPLES, Mr. Leonard BACHER, Mr. Patrick BIKO, Mr. Steven BOKALA, Mr. Willie BOKAS, Miss Katina CAROLUS, Miss Cheryl CRONIN, Mr. Jerome DIERGAARD, Mr. Raymond Student, Dower Training College, Bethelsdorp. Detained 8 September 1976. President, Students' Representative Council at University of Western Cape. Theological student, Nederduitse Zendingskerk. Detained 13 August 1976. 29. Founder member of South African Students Organisation and former leader at University of Natal (Black Section). Assistant Director of Black Community Programme. Banned in 1973. Living in restriction in King William's Town. Detained 17 August 1976 first under section 22 of General Law Amendment Act; then under Terrorism Act. Reporter on the World. Detained 23 September 1976 under Internal Security Act. Had testified before the Cillie Commission of Inquiry that he had seen a white policeman open fire on Black students in Saweto. Student. Arrested beginning of September 1976. Student at University of Western Cape. Detained 25 August 1976. 26. Political Science lecturer at University of Cape Town. Detained 29 July 1976. Brought to trial under Terrorism Act and Internal Security Act and charged with conspiring to promote the aims of the ANC and the South African Communist Party.
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