Psychiatric abuse of detainees alleged

Press, 4 February 1987, Page 10

Psychiatric abuse of detainees alleged

NZPA-Reuter Cape Town South Africa’s official white Opposition yesterday opened its campaign for the May General Election by charging that the Government had suppressed reports of psychiatric abuse of political detainees. The liberal Progressive Federal Party (P.F.P.), launching a Parliamentary debate on a motion of no confidence, accused the Government of keeping white voters in ignorance and said the election could not be called free and fair. The Government last June imposed emergency laws, including heavy censorship, to quell violence and demands for black rights. “The Government has imposed a form of law

and order in our country but does it realise the enormity of the damage it is doing to the very fabric of our society?” the P.F.P.’s leader, Colin Eglin, asked. Under cover of Parliamentary privilege, Mr Eglin disclosed research on some of the estimated 25,000 people held without trial under the emergency. He said that 38 per cent in one study had suffered psychiatric abuse in detention. Nearly all the detainees examined suffered severe mental stress from interrogation and solitary confinement, according to reports which South African newspapers are forbidden to publish. Accusing authorities of distorting news of what it calls violence among blacks, Mr Eglin quoted

residents who said that the police had stood by as Right-wing vigilantes rampaged through one township last month attacking Government opponents. The Finance Minister, Mr Barend du Plessis, defending emergency rule, told Parliament: “I don’t want to stand here boasting statistics about dead people, but it’s a fact that since these measures were introduced, fewer people have died.” The official death toll since the emergency is some 400 against nearly 2000 in the previous two years of revolt. Mr Eglin capitalised on unprecedented dissent in the governing National Party’s reformist wing, saying its rebels had realised that talks with black nationalists were essential.