Political prisoners

Programme for a conference on trade unions in South Africa held on 24 February 1990. After the banning of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in 1988, the trade union movement led the opposition to apartheid. The conference mobilised support for trade unionists who had been arrested and detained.

Leaflet advertising a picket of South Africa House on International Women’s Day, 1990. South Africa continued to hold hundreds of political prisoners and detainees, including many women, after the release of Nelson Mandela in February 1990. The campaign for the release of all political prisoners was one of the priorities of the AAM in the early 1990s.

On 11 October 1990, designated as UN South African Political Prisoners Day, Southern Africa the Imprisoned Society (SATIS) held a vigil outside the British Foreign Office calling for the release of all South African political prisoners. SATIS asked the British Prime Minister to press President de Klerk to implement his pledge to free the prisoners.

Demonstrators told President de Klerk he must honour his promise to free all political prisoners by the 30 April deadline agreed with the ANC, as he arrived for a reception at the South African Embassy in April 1991.

The South African government failed to honour the agreement it signed with the ANC in August 1990 to release all political prisoners, and at least 284 were still in prison in June 1991. The AAM campaigned to ensure that the prisoners were not forgotten and for freedom for all political prisoners.

Leaflet publicising a public meeting in April 1991 highlighting the continued imprisonment and detention of political prisoners in South Africa.

The AAM Women’s Committee campaigned to ensure that individual women political prisoners were not forgotten. This leaflet gave details of the sentences of six women prisoners and asked people to write to the South African ambassador in London, the British Foreign Secretary and the British Red Cross calling for their release.

This T-shirt was produced in several colours, including turquoise and deep pink.