African Activist Archive

The mailing says the trial of the Sharpeville Six in South Africa is straight out of "Alice in Wonderland." The mailing says the six defendants were charged with murder, but the government had no evidence against them. The mailing says their "crime" was being present at a protest demonstration in front of the victim's house. The mailing says the court rejected the defendants' evidence that confessions were extracted by torture with electric shocks, even though a District Surgeon confirmed that one defendant suffered serious injuries to his arms, leg, chest and face, along with vision and hearing impairment. The mailing says the repression in South Africa is brutal almost beyond imagining. The mailing says but the brave men and women of South Africa who are struggling against apartheid have not given up, and if we are to help them, we can't just wring our hands and bemoan the hopelessness of it all. The mailing says we have a critically important job to do -- one that we have done for 20 years in South Africa and with your support, we will continue to do. The mailing says we provide legal assistance for the defense of political prisoners in South Africa by hiring lawyers to defend them and by paying court costs; we bring lawsuits to challenge apartheid laws and practices; we bring damages actions on behalf of the victims of illegal police practices and imprisonment; we enlist volunteer lawyers in the United States to work with human rights lawyers in South Africa, and we serve as a resource on questions of international law; we provide expert witnesses and distinguished legal scholars and jurists to serve as international observers at South African trials. The mailing says despite the perversion of the justice system, we have helped free hundreds of people from prison, torture and solitary confinement. The mailing says we have even won some notable victories that protected the rights of large categories of people -- union members, students and township residents, for example. The mailing says we have learned, too, from our twenty years of experience in South Africa how much and what kind of international pressure works on the apartheid government. The mailing says sometimes, international condemnation of oppression results in the government's attempting to conceal its brutality by clamping down an iron curtain of censorship on the free international press. The mailing says the South African government has even resorted to hanging anti-apartheid activists in secret. The mailing says but sometimes, the outrage of the international community is so well organized that the South African government is forced to yield. The mailing says that is why we helped organize the international campaign to protest the detention and abuse of more than 10,000 South African children, snatched off the streets, from their homes and from their classrooms and held in filthy jails, under savage conditions for many months without charges, without trials and without their parents being able to find them.

African Activist Archive

OFF WITH THEIR HEADS! OFF WITH THEIR HEADS! FIRST THE VERDICT, THEN THE TRIAL …

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