Political prisoners

AAM supporters held a 24-hour vigil on the steps of St Martin’s in the Fields on Good Friday, 11–12 April 1974 to call for the release of all South African political prisoners. They collected over 2,500 signatures for a petition to be presented to the UN in June. The vigil and petition were part of the campaign launched by Southern Africa the Imprisoned Society (SATIS) at its founding conference in December 1973. In the photograph are Kay Hosey, mother of political prisoner Sean Hosey, and Rev Paul Oestreicher.

The AAM celebrated its 15th anniversary with a ‘Freedom Convention’ at Camden Lock, London on 30 June 1974. Stalls displayed information about South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Portugal’s African colonies. A petition for the release of South African prisoners with 30,000 signatures was presented to Nigeria’s UN Ambassador Edwin Ogbu, Chair of the UN Special Committee Against Apartheid. The Convention also highlighted the call for a boycott of all South African products.

The AAM celebrated its fifteenth anniversary with a ‘Freedom Convention’ at Camden Lock, London on 30 June 1974. Stalls displayed information about South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Portugal’s African colonies. A petition for the release of South African prisoners with 30,000 signatures was presented to Nigeria’s UN Ambassador Edwin Ogbu, Chair of the UN Special Committee Against Apartheid. The Convention also highlighted the call for a boycott of all South African products.

South African former political prisoners took part in a walk from London to Manchester, 27 October–6 November 1974. They held meetings along the way to publicise the situation of political prisoners. In the photograph the marchers are leaving Banbury, where they were met by Labour councillors and held a meeting in the Town Hall.

US civil rights leader and former prisoner Angela Davis visited London to campaign for South African political prisoners, 10–13 December 1974. She spoke at a meeting at Friends House organised by the AAM, International Defence and Aid Fund (IDAF) and Liberation. She said black Americans felt a special responsibility to support the struggle of their sisters and brothers in Southern Africa. On the right is future Labour Cabinet Minister Charles Clarke.

In the early 1970s AAM local groups adopted individual South African political prisoners and campaigned on their behalf. West London AA Group took up the case of Ahmed Kathrada, sentenced to life imprisonment at the Rivonia trial in 1964. Kathrada spent 25 years in prison and was released in November 1989.

Letter from AAM Executive Secretary Basil Manning, written on behalf of Southern Africa the Imprisoned Society (SATIS), to Foreign Secretary James Callaghan, asking the British government to send observers to the trial of black consciousness movement leaders in South Africa in 1975.

In the mid-1970s students became the focus of opposition in South Africa, many of them supporters of the black consciousness movement. This leaflet highlighted the case of nine SASO members charged under the Terrorism Act. It also called for the release of NUSAS President Karel Tip.