ANOTHER EXPOSURE OF SOUTH AFRICA'S PRISONS
[The Johannesburg newspaper, the Rand Daily Mail, has published an exposure of jail conditions in South Africa that shocked even racist-minded whites in that fascist-like country. The facts were compiled by Benjamin Pogrund in collaboration with Harold Strachan, a white political prisoner who was recently released from prison after serving a three-year sentence on charges of conspiring _to cause. explosions,
[Strachants experiences were published by the Rand Daily Mail in three massive installments. On July 1, after publication of the second in the series, six detectives raided the offices of the Rand Daily Mail. They seized notes and the text of the third article but> did not notice that it was already set up in type.
Lon July 2, only hours after publication of the third article, police visited Strachan at his Durban home and served him with "ban-_ ning" orders. These force Strachan to remain at home from 6 p.m, to 7 a.m. daily for the next five years. As a banned person, Strachan’ cannot be quoted in even the most general way. Thus, writes Pogrund in the London Sunday Times of July 4, “Although the banning has not yet been published in the government Gazette I dare not risk prose- ™“'' cution and jailing by cabling his story."
[The Rand Daily Mail may also be in trouble. Under the Prisons Act of 1959, publication of information about jail conditions is restricted and the onus of proving the truth of statements is on the publisher. The state only has to allege that false information has been published. Nevertheless the Rand Daily Mail is standing firm. It has called for appointment of a judicial commission of inquiry.
[The London Daily Mail apparently received clippings of the three articles that caused the furor. It quoted exténsively from
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them in two installments July 5 and 6, The following is an extract that gives a good indication of. what the explosive articles contain. ]
“woe Oe |
All prisoners when they came into prison went to the hospital to get examined and so forth. Non-European prisoners who had to see othe doctors were brought out at about 6:15 in the morning, and it could be: ‘froezing cold in Pretoria.
They stood naked; 60, 70, 80 of them at a time.
Huddled up like birds trying to keep warm. Like poultry. Stark naked.
They had to stand with frost thick on the ground, barefoot, clutching each other to try to keep warm... Shivering.
And they would stand there until the doctor came at nine o'clock, sometimes later. Now and then one of the poyisas [Zulu word ‘for policemen] would allow them to pick up a garment to drape over their shoulders, —
Otherwise they just stood naked until the doctor came....
I saw one man, who was apparently suspected of smuggling [the drug] dagga, dragged out of the hospital by a warder, Kruger, whom we called "Florence Nightingale."
This warder was a burly man with a deformed face. He dragged out this. prisoner who was wearing the hospital grey robe and forced him to kneel down on all fours, stripped naked, in front of all the other patients who were allowed to sit around in the sun during the day.
(He) forced him to kneel while the African prisoner who acted -as hospital orderly stood with an enema.can of soap and water. The enema was administered. :
The prisoner stood up. Blood was. dripping down his legs. He was. not allowed to get rid of this soapy water...He had to stand with his buttocks clenched together with his hands.
He. was then forced to jump around from leg to leg, doing a sort of quick march, a sort of knees up to a horizontal position but still clutching his buttocks....
The burly warder kicked him as he jumped in this way, kicked -him on his arms, his back, his hips and his belly. Until finally a pot was brought out by one of the African prisoners,
The man then sat on the pot and got rid of all this water in the presence of the warder and everyone else. And while he was doing it he was being beaten over the head. :
Where the man had been standing and jumping there was a puddle of blood....
On another occasion I saw a prisoner carried into the prison yard on a blanket, the corners held by other African prisoners,.... Two of the warders had a consultation and apparently decided the man was shamming,. . as
One of the warders took his wooden truncheon and, sitting down, let it fall on the forehead of this man on the ground - -- I suppose about 20 or 30 times,
Bong, bong, bong -=- as you might do with a pencil on a table, letting it fall with its own weight. a
But this was a truncheon falling from six inches. As it turned out, the man was unconse lous, - fortunately, for he didn't feel this lot going on. a mo,
' BOMBAY CONVENTION