Word: vorster
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South Africa is putting to increasing use one of the newest weapons in its arsenal of repression: house arrests. So far Justice Minister Johannes Balthazar Vorster has wielded it against 13 men and women, subjecting them without trial to what one opposition politician called "civil death...
...arrests were made under a sweeping Sabotage Act steamrollered through a pliant Parliament last spring. Vowing to "tear out Communism here root and branch," Vorster, a wartime Nazi sympathizer, moved against a variety of the government's most outspoken critics. Some were ranking Reds before South Africa banned the Communist Party in 1950; some were vociferous left-wingers. Others were simply liberals, but that makes little difference to Vorster, who considers liberalism "the forerunner of Communism...
...first target was Mrs. Helen Joseph, 57, a greying, English-born divorcee and a founder of the Congress of Democrats, a left-wing organization banned in September under the government's vaguely worded Suppression of Communism Act. Last week Vorster moved against Jack Hodgson, 54, partially disabled World War II veteran and organizer of leftist groups, who must remain in a three-room flat round the clock until 1967. His wife...
...apartheid Author Alan (Cry the Beloved Country) Paton asked, "What will be next? To make lists of disapproved persons? To confiscate their property and make them wear a yellow star?" Last week a list of disapproved persons was indeed issued by the South African government, and Justice Minister Johannes Vorster explained blandly that the list merely "closes certain loopholes...
...week's end, Vorster granted newspapers permission to print a listed man's direct court testimony "as long as it is not abused to provide a forum to such persons." Most editors were not inclined to test Vorster's interpretation of abuse. Said Author Paton, who was still surprisingly unbanned: "What astonishes me is that a minister with so much power, more power than anyone has had since Hitler and Stalin, can take such savage action against people who have no power at all. It reveals to me the great anxiety of our rulers...