Nine Robben Island prisoners were charged on the Island with refusing to obey orders to work in the prison's lime quarry. This followed incidents in January when the prisoners claim that dogs were set on them by warders. Lawyers instructed to represent the nine accused on this charge were not allowed to advise them on the question of assault and dog bites.
At the end of March the nine prisoners were acquitted, the magistrate finding that the order to work was unreasonable under the conditions imposed. The nine accused were Saths Cooper, Aubrey Mokoape, Strini Moodley, Gilbert Sedibe, Muntu Myeza, (all of SASO/BPC, convicted in December) Bertram Gonsalves, Rudolf Knight, Joseph Plaatjes and Owen Stuurman (UWC students convicted of sabotage and arson in November and December).
Another trial on the Island involved two prisoners accused of possessing banned publications. Malcolm Dyani, 36, was convicted in March of having a book called "Dialectical Materialism" in June 1976, and sentenced to three months imprisonment. Titus Vukile Jobo, 46, was acquitted on the same charge. Press reporters were not allowed to attend the court hearing but obtained details from the court record. Dyani was sentenced to 15 years in March 1963 for sabotage and membership of a banned organisation; Jobo (Dyobo) to 18 years in 1962 for undergoing military training.
On 25 April a party of 24 press visitors was taken to Robben Island by the Prisons Department to view conditions there. This was an unprecedented visit, the first since the Island became the jail for black political prisoners in 1961, and was arranged as a result of allegations of brutality on the Island in United Nations and other reports. The press visitors were given no warning of the visit and were not allowed to speak to any prisoners (though they reported seeing Nelson Mandela, Herman Ja Toivo, Walter Sisulu and Govan Mbeki at work in the prison grounds). Special photographs of Mandela's single cell and a typical communal cell for 15-20 prisons were issued. The press reports were submitted to the Prison Dept. before publication, and it would appear that the whole visit was carefully arranged to counter unfavourable reports.
As a result of this visit the following details were released: No. of inmates: 370 (incl. 130 arrivals in the last year) No. of life sentences: 32 No. of warders: 174 Total No. of political prisoners in SA: 383
