STUDENTS and YOUTH
- Three students from the University of the North (Turfloop) made an appearance in the Pietersburg Regional Court on 16 February on charges of public violence.
Their appearance follows an anti-Republic festival celebrations demonstration at the university last year. While students were demonstrating Lebowa police attacked them. Three students were shot and as a result one had to have a leg amputated.
- A University of Cape Town student, Gavin EVANS, has appealed in the Cape Town Supreme Court against a conviction under the Riotous Assemblies Act, after allegedly attending an unlawful gathering in May last year.
Evans and 46 other students were arrested by the riot police while protesting outside the Good Hope Centre during the World Meat Conference which was being held there.
In the appeal it was claimed that the students had sought legal advice prior to staging the demonstration and believed that they would not be contravening the law.
- A 15-year-old youth was found guilty of public violence at a retrial in the Fort Beaufort Regional Court on 26 January. At an earlier trial he was convicted on the same charge and sentence was postponed for five years.
Judgement was set aside on appeal and a retrial was ordered. In the retrial the youth was sentenced to be detained until the rising of the court (which means that in effect the whole of the sentence was suspended).
The youth was initially detained when a policeman shot into a crowd who were allegedly stoning policemen. The youth claimed to be in the area because he had gone shopping. Policemen had stood on him and assaulted him. As a result he sustained a broken collarbone and a fractured right thigh, besides numerous wounds from shotgun pellets. A civil case is pending against the police involved in the shooting.
TRADE UNIONISTS AND WORKERS
- Fifty former post office workers appeared in the Port Elizabeth Magistrates Court in January as a result of a strike at two post office yards in October last year. They were charged, under the Riotous Assemblies Act, with having intimidated others.
About 180 workers were dismissed as a result of the strike, The General Workers' Union of South Africa (GWUSA) said that the management had blocked their attempts to organise workers.
- Three former Wilson-Rowntree workers were found not guilty and discharged when they appeared on a charge of malicious damage to property in the Mdantsane Regional Court on 15 January. Three others who appeared with them had their charges withdrawn at the start of the trial.
The charges arose out of an incident in which the house of another Wilson-Rowntree worker was stoned.
- The Attorney-General in the Ciskei withdrew charges of incitement to public violence against 139 members of the South African Allied Workers' Union (SAAWU) at the beginning of March.
The unionists were part of a contingent of 205 who were arrested by Ciskei police on 6 September last year.
Another 35 of the group of 205 were fined R100 or 100 days imprisonment and given a nine months' sentence suspended for five years, after being found guilty of incitement to public violence.
- A worker from Guguletu, Ronald VUMAZONKE (20), appeared in the Athlone Magistrates Court on 7 January charged with intimidation during the 16 and 17 June stayaways. It is alleged that he threatened other workers. The hearing was postponed to 3 March.
- The right of trade unions to operate and hold meetings in Bophuthatswana is to be tested in the courts. Three trade unionists of the National Automobile and Allied Workers Union, Nelson RAKAU, Taffy ADLER and Martin NDABA have been charged under the bantustan's Internal Security Act for allegedly holding an illegal gathering.
The unionists argue that the law under which the three were arrested violates Bophuthatswana's Bill of Rights which guarantees freedom of association. If the courts were to uphold this argument they would also uphold the right of unions to hold meetings and operate in the bantustan.
The three trade unionists have already appeared in court and their next appearance is due in April.
MISCELLANEOUS TRIALS
- The former President of the banned Transkei Youth League, Prince MADIKIZELA, and 10 others, had charges against them provisionally withdrawn when they appeared in the Engcobo Magistrates Court on 29 January.
They were arrested by security police while preparing to hold a meeting in the district in November last year.
- Three people who are alleged to have harboured one of three ANC prisoners who escaped from Pretoria Prison in December 1979 have been charged under the Prisons Act.
They are Michael JENKIN (35), Prema NAIDOO (33) and Shirish NANABHAI (44). They were not asked to plead and were due to appear again on 1 April.
- A sports administrator from Oudtshoorn, Reg OLIPHANT (34), had charges of possession of banned publications dropped when he appeared in court on 23 December. The allegedly banned books were books on politics which he was using for his studies through the University of South Africa.
