The chairman of the SWAPO Youth League in Windhoek, Bernadus PETRUS (21) was released In February after being held in solitary confinement for nine weeks without charge. Petrus was arrested in Ovamboland on 2 December 1977, together with ten other SWAPO officials and members. While his colleagues were held under new security legislation introduced by the SWAPO Administrator General, Justice Steyn, and released after a few days, Petrus was detained under Section Six of South Africa's Terrorism Act, on the orders, according to SWAPO, of Justice Steyn himself.
In a statement issued in Windhoek by SWAPO's Administrative Secretary Axel Johannes, Petrus was reported to be undergoing medical treatment following assault and torture by the security police. An application brought before the Windhoek Supreme Court by the detainee's father, Franciscus Petrus, for an order restraining the police from interrogating Bernadus Petrus in "any manner other than that prescribed by law" assaulting him or giving him electric shocks, had been repeatedly refused on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence of any ill-treatment. Leave to appeal against the Supreme Court's decision was finally granted by the Appeal Court in Bloemfontein at the beginning of February however, shortly after the publication of "Torture - A Cancer in our Society". Petrus was released a few days later.
As an Active student leader in Namibia, Bernadus Petrus has suffered police harassment and assault before. At the end of 1976 he was arrested in connection with petrol fires at the Augustineum Training College at Windhoek and appeared before the Regional Court on charges of arson. Evidence was subsequently published that he and at least one other student arrested with him had been given electric shock treatment and assaulted by the security police.
