A report recently published by the South African Institute of Race Relations has revealed that at least 956 people were detained by security police in South Africa last year. But comparing privately collected statistics with official figures over the past few years, the latter are considerably higher. Since the figures compiled by the SAIRR are based on newspaper reports it would appear that many detentions are taking place without anyone knowing about them.
According to the SAIRR report, 146 of the detentions took place in the Ciskei, 41 in the Transkei and one in Venda. 431 of the people detained were pupils, 117 college and university students, 32 lecturers, school principals and teachers, 67 political leaders, 39 community workers, 10 journalists and 21 trade unionists. Most of the cases followed a certain pattern.
A detainee would first be held under Section 22 of the General Law Amendment Act, then under Section 6 of the Terrorism Act, and finally under Section 10 of the Internal Security Act.
In 1979 the SAIRR recorded approximately 300 security detentions and a similar number for 1978. Not since the mass uprisings of 1976 have so many people been detained, and as this month's list of new detentions indicates, the arrests and detentions continue.
Although the main bulk of detentions in 1980 took place in the first half of the year, especially during and after the Cape school boycott in April and May, there was little slowing down in the number of arrests during the rest of the year. There were noticeable patterns in the year's detentions. During the Cape schools boycott the majority of detainees were pupils, students, teachers and members of student organizations. Most were held under the 'preventive detention' clause of Section 10 of the Internal Security Act. Later in the year as the schools boycott spread to other areas and trade union militancy increased, the areas where arrests took place shifted from one zone of militant mass resistance to another. There was a shift by the police away from mass detentions under Section 10, to harsher forms of detention under the Terrorism Act.
The Eastern Cape has been the area of most consistent resistance to apartheid, as evidenced by the large number of detentions by the Ciskei Security police and the 'rounding up' of school pupils in their hundreds.
FOCUS has listed the names of more than 600 people in the same period. FOCUS lists, like the figures given by SAIRR, are based on newspaper reports, not an entirely reliable source. Some detentions are not reported at all while others only become known when a detainee is released or appears in court. Others never become known at all. State restrictions on the publication of the names of detainees add to this disparity between official and unofficial figures.
