Mailing of the Unlock Apartheid's Jails campaign. The F.W. de Klerk wants the world to believe that South Africa is on the mend and a new democratic country is being built, but apartheid is alive and being enforced. Almost 1,000 political prisoners remain in jail, six months after the official deadline when the releases were to have been completed. Political prisoners continue to be denied basic care and remain victims or brutality and torture. On October 14, Solly Ramakgate died after being assaulted in police custody in Lebowa, and Babusang Monnane died in Rooigrond prison, after failing to receive medical care despite coughing up blood for three days. Political prisoners are on hunger strike...
Mailing of the Unlock Apartheid's Jails campaign. The F.W. de Klerk wants the world to believe that South Africa is on the mend and a new democratic country is being built, but apartheid is alive and being enforced. Almost 1,000 political prisoners remain in jail, six months after the official deadline when the releases were to have been completed. Political prisoners continue to be denied basic care and remain victims or brutality and torture. On October 14, Solly Ramakgate died after being assaulted in police custody in Lebowa, and Babusang Monnane died in Rooigrond prison, after failing to receive medical care despite coughing up blood for three days. Political prisoners are on hunger strike in Bophuthatswana, in St. Albans prison in Port Elizabeth, and in J.C. Steyn prison in the Eastern Cape. The mailing says 204 people are currently being detained without trial. Over 150 political trials are in progress involving roughly 1,700 people; these defendants have been charged with common law crimes such as unrest, arson and assault to disguise the fact they are political defendants. For a new democratic South Africa to come into being, all political prisoners must be freed and all political trials must be stopped.
