Detainees Day marred

Press, 14 March 1987, Page 10

Detainees Day marred

Thamba Mnikati and Umzelikazi Mtungwa, of Soweto, were two of the many people who heeded the call on National Detainees Day yesterday to light candles in support of prisoners held without charge under South Africa’s state of emertency. Reuters reported that a peaceful procession by black youths to mark the day was broken up by Johannesburg police, who fired teargas in the central shopping district. About 50 blacks sang freedom songs as they marched from a lunchtime meeting at a church organised by a human rights group. The procession was dispersed when it ran into a large contingent of riot police armed with guns, whips and teargas. Witnesses saw at least one arrest.

About 1000 people gathered at the Central Methodist Church and anti-apartheid campaigners who addressed

the multi-racial congregation demanded the immediate release of thousands of people detained under the nine-month-old emergency.

The day’s events, including fast and prayer meetings, were organised by the Detainees’ Parents Support Committee, which estimates that 25,000 people have been held for varying periods under the emergency. Speakers emphasised the plight of children in detention. The support committee says 575 children are in prison in the Johannesburg region alone, including three aged 11 and four aged 12.

Meanwhile, an Ameri-can-born Catholic priest, freed on Thursday from

three months detention, said yesterday he had been tortured and interrogated.

The Rev. James Paulsen, who flew to neighbouring Zimbabwe en route to the United States, told Zimbabwe’s news agency, Ziana, that he had been stripped naked, his hands tied and his head immersed in water several times during questioning. “They then bent my legs upward and started beating them. It was horrible,” added Father Paulsen, aged 51. He was arrested on December 17 by security officials of South Africa's nominally independent black tribal homeland'of Transkei and accused of harbouring black nationalist guerrillas. Despite the accusations, no charges were laid against him, said the Roman Catholic priest, adding that he believed he was freed because of pressure from the United States Congress. ( j;