FOURTEEN MONTHS AN “UNPERSON”

Te Ao Hou, 1970, Page 55

FOURTEEN MONTHS AN “UNPERSON” DESMOND FRANCIS is a South African Indian who teaches in Zambia. He is 31. On January 2nd, 1968 he crossed the Rhodesian border to arrange a rail journey for his mother, and was detained by Rhodesian police. He was finally released 14 months later. The Rhodesian Security police gave him a “working over” in Bulawayo gaol, and the torture was so unbearable that he tried to commit suicide. They then handed him over to the South African security police and a long nightmare of interrogation and torture which all but broke his spirit as well as his health. He became an “unperson” (his term), one of many political prisoners who disappear into South Africa's gaols and who sometimes don't come out alive. THE DEFENCE AID FUND FOR SOUTHERN AFRICA heard of his plight and over a period of months spent over $2,000 in legal fees in their efforts to gain his release. They've been doing this sort of thing for the victims of apartheid ever since the so-called “Treason” Trial of 1956; but it would have been impossible without the help of many thousands of sympathisers all over the world. YOU COULD RESCUE SOMEONE FROM THE TORTURER'S CELL Send your donation, with this coupon, to: The Treasurer, N.Z. Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa, 20 Lyndhurst Road, Tawa, Wellington. I enclose $……for the Defence and Aid Fund. Please send me: Your Information pamphlet (tick); your Newsletter (tick); “The Violence of Apartheid” (45c), a South African lawyer's study of police methods and prisons (tick). NAME.…. ADDRESS.…. D.A.14