The number of people detained without trial increased sharply following the declaration of a State of Emergency on 20 July. Within 11 days over 1,200 people had been held under the emergency powers. At the same time police were continuing to detain people outside the areas covered by the emergency, using the Internal Security Act and other laws or regulations in force in bantustan areas.
Even before the State of Emergency, powers to detain people were being widely used, as the list opposite shows, and there were estimated to be a hundred people in detention when the State of Emergency began. Powers of preventive detention (under Section 28 of the Internal Security Act) were also used for the first time since 1984 when three members of COSAS were detained in Potchefstroom in July and another two people in Mankweng. A number of those detained under the emergency regulations had recently been detained under the Internal Security Act, and presumably been released.
The emergency powers to detain people with or without a warrant for up to 14 days – or longer by permission of the Minister of Law and Order – are similar to those which exist under Section 50 of the Internal Security Act. But whereas under the Act detention for more than 48 hours requires the authorisation of a magistrate, this is not the case under the emergency regulations. The emergency regulations, unlike Section 50 of the Internal Security Act, also allow detainees to be interrogated. The powers of arrest, restricted under the Act to police warrant officers or officers of higher rank, are conferred under the emergency regulations on all members of the police and army.
Initially the police used the emergency powers to refuse to give names of those detained, but then issued lists every day giving the names of people detained and the district in which they were held. The first lists indicated that some were nationally known figures but the great majority were local activists.
DEATH IN DETENTION
A 13 year old boy, taken from his home by police on 3 July, died in detention the following day while in police cells in the Eastern Cape town of Steytlerville. He died of head injuries, according to a Port Elizabeth pathologist who conducted the post mortem on behalf of the dead boy's family.
The circumstances of his death reflect the violence with which the police have responded to the sustained resistance of the past year. The boy, Johannes SPOGTER (also known as Witbooi), was arrested after a memorial service which had been held for the four community leaders killed near Cradock. (See ABDUCTIONS AND DISAPPEARANCES)
Johannes Spogter's cousin, Mzwandile MUGGELS (20), who was coordinator of the Karoo Youth Congress, was returning from the memorial service with a group of youths when they were confronted by police. They retaliated with stones and ran away.
Later in the day police came across the youths sitting round a fire and fired rubber bullets and teargas at them. Mzwandile Muggels ran into his uncle's house, followed by the police who had shot and fatally wounded him. They took him away in a police van, along with his cousin Johannes Spogter who was in the house at the time. (CT 9/11.7.85; S 10.7.85)
- At the end of April according to the DPSC, there were 37 people still in detention who had been held at least six months earlier. At least 30 of these people were being held under Section 29 of the Internal Security Act which provides for indefinite incommunicado detention for purposes of interrogation. Two thirds of those held for six months were from the Vaal area, and a number of them appeared in court in June. (Star 17.5.85; see BALEKA AND OTHERS under POLITICAL TRIALS)
According to the government, out of 59 people charged during 1984 with offences under the Internal Security Act after being held under Section 29 of that Act, 32 had spent more than three months in detention before being charged. Twenty had been held for more than four months. (Debates 26.2.85)
- Preventive detention, under Section 28 of the Internal Security Act, was used during 1984 to hold 25 people for periods ranging from 18 days to 305 days. One person was held for 305 days; three for 194 days; 12 for between 70 days and 113 days; and nine for 36 days or less. (Debates 26.2.85)
- Section 50 of the Internal Security Act allows detention of people for up to 14 days in what the law describes as situations of 'unrest'. During 1984, 166 people were held under this section. (Debates 26.2.85)
ARMED STRUGGLE
During May and June there were a number of detentions relating to the armed struggle.
- Bophuthatswana bantustan police arrested a man in connection with the alleged killing of a South African Police detective on 27 May. They confirmed that a man was being held for questioning but would give no details.
One policeman, Detective Warrant-Officer Jacob TSHWANE was shot dead and another, Detective Constable Simon KHANYANE, was wounded when two alleged members of the ANC opened fire on them at a house near GaRankuwa in the Bophutatswana bantustan.
- After a series of six hand grenade attacks in the Cape Peninsula area early in June, police detained three men in connection with the incidents. Two of the men were released, one dying shortly afterwards as a result of wounds which the police said he received before his detention, during a police 'follow-up operation'. The man who died was Dumisani NTLANGENI (22). The police said the third man was being held for questioning.
The six hand grenade attacks were directed at the homes of two members of the Coloured house of the segregated parliament, a community councillor and three policemen. The ANC said that it was responsible for the attack on the policeman, but was not involved in the other attacks, adding that it 'would not go out of its way to condemn the attacks'. (CT 18/21.6.85; Star 21.6.85)
- In another incident said by police to be connected with the armed struggle, a man was shot dead north of the Kruger National Park. Police said that he was shot when four policemen were confronted by two alleged guerillas, one of whom threw a hand grenade at them. (Star/CT 21.6.85)
- The names of four people detained in Nelspruit on 19 March are given in the list of detainees in this issue, and those of another three were given in the list in FOCUS 59. These names, obtained from DPSC lists of detainees, would appear to be those of people who were detained after a battle between police and guerillas, reported previously. (FOCUS 58 p.6)
- In an incident of a different kind, several people were detained after a series of hand grenade explosions on the East Rand on 25 June. (See GRENADES INCIDENT under APARTHEID VIOLENCE)
LONG DETENTIONS
Official statistics and figures provided by the Detainees Parents Support Committee concerning detentions during 1984 and the first four months of 1985, show that a considerable number of detainees spent several months in detention, many of them in solitary confinement. (The official statistics do not include information about detentions in several bantustan areas.)
- During 1984 a total of 47 people were held as potential state witnesses under Section 31 of the Internal Security Act. All of those who were released by February 1985, with the exception of two people, had been held for between three and five months. In February, 26 of these detainees were still being held and had been in detention for between two and a half and five months. (Debates 12.3.85)
MOTHERS IN DETENTIONS
In answer to questions in parliament in February, the Minister of Law and Order revealed that during 1984 two detainees were hospitalised to give birth (the term used by the Minister was 'confinement').
It was already known that one woman, Marilia NHLABANTSI, had given birth to a child in detention after being detained in Johannesburg in August. She was still in detention at the end of June 1985. (FOCUS 57 p.4) The identity of the second woman is not known.
A third case of a woman giving birth to a child while being held in custody was reported in July 1985. Nona TSOAGAI (19) was arrested on 21 March in Kimberley and charged with public violence. She was twice refused bail. She gave birth to a boy at the Kimberley hospital on 10 July and was returned to Kimberley Prison while her baby was kept at the hospital. (S 17.7.85)
RELEASES
- In June it was reported that Humphrey MAXEGWANA had been released from detention in the Ciskei bantustan. (FOCUS 59 p.3)
- In June, Sithembele ZOKWE was reported to have been released from detention under Section 29 of the Internal Security Act but held in police custody pending 'deportation' to the Transkei bantustan. (FOCUS 57 p.5; S 11.7.85)
