Albertina SISULU was banned in June for the fifth time since 1963. Sisulu was served a two-year banning order shortly after her release from a Soweto police station where she was detained for a brief spell along with 250 others who attended a memorial service for trade union leader, Joseph Mavi and two murdered ANC members. Her last banning order, also for two years, expired in August last year. Under the terms of the new order she is prohibited from attending any social and political gatherings and from gatherings of pupils or students for purposes of addressing or giving them instruction. The order expires on 31 March 1984.
The prominent Port Elizabeth playwright, Rev Mzwandile MAQINA, was served with a three-year banning order on 15 June just over two months since his first banning order expired at the end of March.
In addition to those bans reported lifted in the last issue of FOCUS, the following people had their bans lifted in May, according to the Government Gazette:
- Baptiste MARIE, research officer with the Institute for Black Research. His banning order was lifted one week before its expiry date at the end of May.
- Kader HASSIM, former Pietermaritzburg attorney and political prisoner, served with a five-year banning order on his release from Robben Island in April 1980.
- Fikile MLINDA, a former member of the Zimele Trust Fund, a black charitable organisation established to assist political prisoners on release and which was banned in October 1977. He was banned in February 1979 for five years.
- Diliza MJI, a medical student and a former president of the South African Students' Organisation (SASO) detained in October 1977, banned on release in November 1978 for five years.
- Deborah MATSHOBA, literacy director of SASO's literacy programme until SASO was banned in October 1977. She was detained from February 1977 to December 1978 and banned on release for five years.
- The fourth banning order to be served on Helen JOSEPH, the well-known anti-apartheid campaigner active since the 1950s, expired at the end of June. However, as a person listed under the Internal Security Act, she still cannot be quoted nor can her work be published in South Africa. First banned in 1957 when she was a defendant in the Treason Trial, Helen Joseph has been listed for 25 years and banned for 16, but she has been able to address meetings, unquoted, since 1971.
- The banning order on Mongezi STOFILE, a former president of SASO, expired on 31 May. The five-year banning order on another SASO member, a former general secretary, Thami ZANI, expired on 30 June. Zani is now living in exile.
- The five-year ban on Maphefo Jane PHAKATHI, former regional director of the Christian Institute in the Transvaal, expired in March. Phakathi fled South Africa shortly after being banned in March 1977.
- Phindile MFETHI, a former trade unionist and secretary of the Industrial Aid Society, who was banned in May 1977 for five years until May 1982, is no longer a banned person but remains banished to the Transkei since his removal there from the Transvaal in July 1978 under the Aliens Act.
Two formerly banned people presently living in the Ciskei bantustan were in July declared 'prohibited immigrants' by the South African government and are now effectively restricted to the vicinity of Zwelitsha. They are Charles NQAKULA, acting president of the Media Workers' Association, whose ban was lifted in May this year, and Malusi MPUMULWANA, a first-year theology student whose ban was lifted in February. In terms of the Aliens Act of 1973 unless visas are granted to them by the Department of Internal Affairs they will be unable to leave the Zwelitsha area, since to reach other major centres beyond this part of the Ciskei involves travelling through the rest of South Africa. It is therefore uncertain whether Mr Mpumlwana will be able to continue his studies at Pietermaritzburg.
The prohibition orders thus constitute yet another method of banishment made possible by the process of granting 'independence' to the bantustan areas. The government can restrict movement under the Aliens Act so as effectively to banish people for life from all areas of South Africa not designated as 'independent' bantustans, as in the case of Nqakula and Mpumlwana; it can also remove bantustan 'citizens' from these areas permanently to the bantustan to which they are supposed to belong, as in the case of Mfethi.
Mr C P VANDA, the Town Clerk of Butterworth, in the Transkei bantustan, was banished to his family home in the Nqamakwe district on 11 June by the Transkei Security Police. They declined to give reasons for the banishment.
Orders for the deportation from the Ciskei bantustan of three former executive members of the King and Districts Rugby Union (Kadru) were cancelled in May by the Ciskeian Supreme Court. The three men, Amon NYONDO, Kadru president, Albert TYULU, vice-president, and Douglas MAKU, treasurer, were deported from the Ciskei last September along with Mr F MABECE whose banishment order was lifted in February on his request for a pardon. Kadru is a union campaigning for multi-racial sport.
The new Internal Security Act which implements the recommendations of the Rabie Commission of Inquiry into Security Legislation, provides for the petitioning of the Minister of Law and Order to review any banning within 14 days of its being published in the Government Gazette. A board of jurists will review cases of banned people on a six-monthly basis and may, at the discretion of the Board's chairman, hear evidence from the restricted person before repeating its findings to the Minister.
Two new acts arising from the recommendations of the Rabie Commission, which may be used to further limit the freedom of assembly in South Africa, were published in June.
The Intimidation Act makes it an offence to compel or induce a person to do or abstain from doing any act or to assume or abandon a particular standpoint through an act of violence or damage or the threat of violence or damage. The onus for proving a lawful reason for such an act rests with the accused person. The Act repeals six sections of the Riotous Assemblies Act of 1956, most of which were specifically concerned with the conduct of striking workers and are now made redundant by the wider terms of the new Act. Maximum penalties for an offence under the Act are a R20,000 fine or ten years imprisonment, or both.
The Demonstrations in or near Court Buildings Prohibition Act prohibits 'all demonstrations and gatherings in any building in which a court-room is situated or at any place in the open air within a radius of 500 metres from such building' except on weekends or public holidays, or if permission has been granted by the district magistrate. A demonstration is defined as any demonstration by one or more persons 'which is connected with or coincides with any court proceedings or the proceedings at any inquest'. Maximum penalties under the act are a R1,000 fine or one year's imprisonment, or both.
