Barend Van Niekerk
   HOME
*





Barend Van Niekerk
Professor Barend van Niekerk (born Pietermaritzburg, Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa, 1939; died Bolivia 1981) was an South African acclaimed jurist, a campaigning legal academic and a prominent human rights and anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1970s and early 1980s. This "maverick law professor" was prosecuted twice (and convicted once) by the South African state prosecutor and privately sued once, all such actions being based on his supposed contempt of court. He was indeed a fearless critic of the apartheid legal system, in particular of the judiciary's racial bias in setting death penalties, but also of imprisonment, torture and solitary confinement; freedom of speech; and the role (and shortcomings) of the judiciary. A gifted linguist and great traveller, his post-graduate studies took him to the universities of Heidelberg, Bonn and Strasbourg, and in the process he became fluent in English, French, and German, and met his future wife, Traute von Oehsen. Despite ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Kwa-Zulu Natal
KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN and known as "the garden province") is a province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu) and Natal Province were merged. It is located in the southeast of the country, with a long shoreline on the Indian Ocean and sharing borders with three other provinces and the countries of Mozambique, Eswatini and Lesotho. Its capital is Pietermaritzburg, and its largest city is Durban. It is the second-most populous province in South Africa, with slightly fewer residents than Gauteng. Two areas in KwaZulu-Natal have been declared UNESCO World Heritage Sites: the iSimangaliso Wetland Park and the uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park. These areas are extremely scenic as well as important to the surrounding ecosystems. During the 1830s and early 1840s, the northern part of what is now KwaZulu-Natal was established as the Zulu Kingdom while the southern part was, briefly, the Boer Natalia Repu ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Robben Island
Robben Island ( af, Robbeneiland) is an island in Table Bay, 6.9 kilometres (4.3 mi) west of the coast of Bloubergstrand, north of Cape Town, South Africa. It takes its name from the Dutch word for seals (''robben''), hence the Dutch/Afrikaans name ''Robbeneiland'', which translates to ''Seal(s) Island''. Robben Island is roughly oval in shape, long north–south, and wide, with an area of . It is flat and only a few metres above sea level, as a result of an ancient erosion event. It was fortified and used as a prison from the late-seventeenth century until 1996, after the end of apartheid. Political activist and lawyer Nelson Mandela was imprisoned on the island for 18 of the 27 years of his imprisonment before the fall of apartheid and introduction of full, multi-racial democracy. He was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and was elected in 1994 as President of South Africa, becoming the country's first black president and serving one term from 1994–1999. In additio ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Afrikaner People
Afrikaners () are a South African ethnic group descended from Free Burghers, predominantly Dutch settlers first arriving at the Cape of Good Hope in the 17th and 18th centuries.Entry: Cape Colony. ''Encyclopædia Britannica Volume 4 Part 2: Brain to Casting''. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. 1933. James Louis Garvin, editor. They traditionally dominated South Africa's politics and commercial agricultural sector prior to 1994. Afrikaans, South Africa's third most widely spoken home language, evolved as the First language, mother tongue of Afrikaners and most Cape Coloureds. It originated from the Dutch language, Dutch vernacular of South Holland, incorporating words brought from the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) and Madagascar by slaves. Afrikaners make up approximately 5.2% of the total South African population, based upon the number of White South Africans who speak Afrikaans as a first language in the South African National Census of 2011. The arrival of Portugal, Portug ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

1981 Deaths
Events January * January 1 ** Greece enters the European Economic Community, predecessor of the European Union. ** Palau becomes a self-governing territory. * January 10 – Salvadoran Civil War: The Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, FMLN launches its first major offensive, gaining control of most of Morazán Department, Morazán and Chalatenango Department, Chalatenango departments. * January 15 – Pope John Paul II receives a delegation led by Polish Solidarity (Polish trade union), Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa at the Vatican City, Vatican. * January 20 – Iran releases the 52 Americans held for 444 days, minutes after Ronald Reagan is First inauguration of Ronald Reagan, sworn in as the 40th President of the United States, ending the Iran hostage crisis. * January 21 – The first DMC DeLorean, DeLorean automobile, a stainless steel sports car with gull-wing doors, rolls off the production line in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland. * January 24 – An 1981 Dawu ea ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

1939 Births
This year also marks the start of the Second World War, the largest and deadliest conflict in human history. Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January 1 ** Third Reich *** Jews are forbidden to work with Germans. *** The Youth Protection Act was passed on April 30, 1938 and the Working Hours Regulations came into effect. *** The Jews name change decree has gone into effect. ** The rest of the world *** In Spain, it becomes a duty of all young women under 25 to complete compulsory work service for one year. *** First edition of the Vienna New Year's Concert. *** The company of technology and manufacturing scientific instruments Hewlett-Packard, was founded in a garage in Palo Alto, California, by William (Bill) Hewlett and David Packard. This garage is now considered the birthplace of Silicon Valley. *** Sydney, in Australia, records temperature of 45 ˚C, the highest record for the city. *** Philipp Etter took over as Swi ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Sibusiso Ndebele
Sibusiso Joel "S'bu" Ndebele (born 17 October 1948) is the former Minister of Correctional Services serving from 2012 to 2014. He has been on the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the African National Congress (ANC) since 1997, and was the Provincial Chair of the ANC from 1998 to 2008."Meeting the new Minister of Transport, Minister Ndebele"
''roadsafety.co.za'', 12 May 2009.
From 1994 to 2004 he was the MEC for Transport in the government of province. From 2004 to 2009 he was the

David Ipp
David Andrew Ipp (1938 – 8 October 2020) was a South African-born Australian lawyer, judge and Commissioner of the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption between 2009 and 2014. Ipp was a judge of the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. Education Ipp was born in Johannesburg, where he attended Parktown Boys' High School. He subsequently graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce and Bachelor of Laws from the University of Stellenbosch.''Commissioner prowls, then pounces without a thought for mercy''
by Harriet Alexander & Linton Besser (, 2 November ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Sydney Kentridge
Sir Sydney Woolf Kentridge (born 5 November 1922) is a South African-born lawyer, judge and member of the Bar of England and Wales. He practised law in South Africa and the United Kingdom from the 1940s until his retirement in 2013. In South Africa he played a leading role in a number of the most significant political trials in the apartheid-era, including the Treason Trial of Nelson Mandela and the 1978 inquest into the death of Steve Biko. Kentridge's wife, Felicia Kentridge, was also a leading anti-apartheid lawyer. Early life and education Kentridge was born in 1922 in Johannesburg, the son of Lithuanian-born Jewish lawyer and politician Morris Kentridge (né Kantrovitch; 1881–1964). Sydney Kentridge attended Johannesburg's King Edward VII School, before studying at the University of Witwatersrand. He graduated in 1942, and served during the Second World War as an intelligence officer in the South African Army in East Africa and Italy. After the war, he attended Ex ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Mac Maharaj
Sathyandranath Ragunanan "Mac" Maharaj (born 22 April 1936 in Newcastle, Natal) is a retired South African politician affiliated with the African National Congress, academic and businessman of Indian origin. He was the official spokesperson of the former President of South Africa, Jacob Zuma. Anti-apartheid activism Maharaj was a political activist and member of the then banned South African Communist Party, who worked in a clandestine manner on anti-apartheid activities with Nelson Mandela. In July 1964, Maharaj was arrested in Johannesburg, charged and convicted with four others including Laloo Chiba and Wilton Mkwayi on charges of sabotage in the little Rivonia Trial, and was imprisoned on Robben Island with Mandela. In prison he secretly transcribed parts of Mandela's memoir ''Long Walk to Freedom'' and smuggled it out of the prison in 1976. During his time in prison, Maharaj completed a B.Admin, an MBA and the second year of a B.Sc degree before his release on 8 Decemb ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Kate O'Regan
Catherine "Kate" O'Regan (born 17 September 1957) is a former judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, Constitutional Court of South Africa. From 2013 to 2014 she was a commissioner of the Khayelitsha Commission and is now the inaugural director of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at the University of Oxford. Early life O'Regan was born in Liverpool, England, into a large Catholic family of Irish immigrants. She moved to Cape Town when she was seven. Her mother was a dentist from a "very political household"; her father was a doctor who became active in poor Catholic communities and those subjected to Apartheid#Forced removals, forced removals. O'Regan studied at the University of Cape Town from 1975 to 1980, earning a Bachelor of Arts, BA and Bachelor of Laws, LLB. She was taught briefly by Arthur Chaskalson, who had recently founded the Legal Resources Centre, and ran UCT's legal aid project, working with Mahomed Navsa of the University of the Western Cape. Aft ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Apartheid
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was characterised by an authoritarian political culture based on ''baasskap'' (boss-hood or boss-ship), which ensured that South Africa was dominated politically, socially, and economically by the nation's minority white population. According to this system of social stratification, white citizens had the highest status, followed by Indians and Coloureds, then black Africans. The economic legacy and social effects of apartheid continue to the present day. Broadly speaking, apartheid was delineated into ''petty apartheid'', which entailed the segregation of public facilities and social events, and ''grand apartheid'', which dictated housing and employment opportunities by race. The first apartheid law was the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]