Stop the hangings

In November 1983 the South African Supreme Court turned down an appeal by Umkhonto we Sizwe activist Benjamin Moloise against the death sentence. This letter from Des Starrs, Chair of Southern Africa the Imprisoned Society (SATIS), asked Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe to intervene with the South African Foreign Minister, who was visiting London. Benjamin Moloise was hanged on 18 October 1985.

Benjamin Moloise was sentenced to death in June 1983 on a framed charge of killing a South African security policeman. This vigil outside the South African Embassy, calling for his release, was held on 6 April 1984, the fifth anniversary of the execution of Solomon Mahlangu. In spite of an international campaign for clemency, Benjamin Moloise was hanged on 18 October 1985.

This leaflet asked AAM supporters to press the British government to intervene with South Africa on behalf of three young ANC militants sentenced to death. Benjamin Moloise was wrongly accused of shooting a security policeman. In spite of a long-running campaign he was executed on 18 October 1985. Clarence Payi and Sipho Xulu were convicted of killing an alleged informer. Their appeal was rejected and they were hanged on 9 September 1986.

Benjamin Moloise was sentenced to death on a trumped up charge of murdering a South African security policeman in June 1983. He was hanged on 18 October 1985 in spite of an international campaign for his release. Commonwealth leaders and the governments of the USA, France and Germany all called for clemency. The AAM held a 24-hour vigil outside South Africa House the day before his execution.

SATIS (Southern Africa the Imprisoned Society) held a vigil for the Sharpeville Six on the steps of St Martin’s in the Fields in April 1986. The Six, five men and one woman, were sentenced to death in December 1985 for taking part in a demonstration at which a black deputy mayor was killed. They were reprieved in July 1988 after spending two and a half years on death row.

Clarence Payi and Sipho Xulu were sentenced to death in February 1985 for killing an alleged informer. In spite of an international campaign for clemency they were executed on 9 September 1986.

Poster demanding clemency for Unkhonto we Sizwe combatants Sipho Xulu and Clarence Payi, sentenced to death for killing an alleged police informer. Xulu and Payi were hanged on 9 September 1986.

Every time a political prisoner was executed in South Africa an all-night solidarity vigil was held outside the South African Embassy in London. This leaflet publicised a vigil held for Sipho Xulu and Clarence Payi, young ANC militants who were hanged on the morning of 9 September 1986. Their deaths meant that seven freedom fighters had been hanged by the South African government since the execution of Solomon Mahlangu in 1979.