Since the beginning of the year bans and restrictions have been served constantly on specified gatherings throughout the country by local magistrates in terms of the Internal Security Act and, until March when the State of Emergency was lifted, by police using emergency powers.
The bans supplement the six month blanket ban on meetings of 74 organisations in 30 districts imposed on 31 December, and also the annual ban on outdoor meetings. The latter, which was extended last year to include bans on indoor gatherings to discuss education boycotts and worker stayaways, was renewed in full in March. (IGG 27.3.86)
In May the Minister of Law and Order said that funerals were 'nothing else but political meetings' and that restrictions would be enforced. His statement followed reports of police inability to enforce the restrictions, which have been regularly defied. (Cit 1.5.86)
The restrictions included limits on the number of mourners and prohibitions on mass burials, political speeches, the propagation of the aims of the ANC or the South African Communist Party, on speeches discussing or criticising the government and on flags, placards and banners, and also a requirement that mourners travel in vehicles to and from the service. Police have frequently attacked defiant gatherings with sjamboks, teargas, and rubber bullets. Some of the worst instances of such violence are given below.
- Four people were shot dead and many injured at the funeral of an ANC combatant in Vosloorus, on the East Rand. The event was attended by over 10,000 people, despite a requirement that the number of mourners not exceed 50. (Tel 5.4.86)
- In continuing police and army violence in the Bophuthatswana bantustan, three people among a crowd attempting to hold a funeral at a stadium were shot dead. The funeral was to be for eleven people killed at the stadium in March. (City Press 13.4.86; see OTHER TRIALS and FOCUS 64 p.3)
- In the Lebowa bantustan in March six mourners trying to enter the township of Motetema to attend a funeral were shot dead by police and 50 detained. (CT/MS 11.3.86)
- A gathering of 5,000 pupils at a church hall in Kagiso, near Krugersdorp in the Transvaal, was attacked by police using teargas, gunshot and sjamboks. One schoolgirl was shot dead. (BBC/CT 29.1.86)
- Two people were killed in Munsieville township, near Krugersdorp, in January when police fired on a group of over 1,000 women marching to Krugersdorp police station to protest at the harassment of pupils by troops and riot police in the township. (S 30.1.86; CT 31.3.86; City Press 2.2.86)
- In the Kwa Ndebele bantustan in May police and troops used shotguns against an 'illegal gathering' of more than two thousand villagers demanding the cancellation of plans to grant the bantustan 'independence' in December. Two people were reported killed and many injured. (S 15.5.86)
