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Pollsmoor
Pollsmoor Prison, officially known as Pollsmoor Maximum Security Prison, is located in the Cape Town suburb of Tokai in South Africa. Pollsmoor is a maximum security penal facility that continues to hold some of South Africa's most dangerous criminals. Although the prison was designed with a maximum capacity of 4,336 offenders attended by a staff of 1,278, the current inmate population is over 7,000 (a figure which fluctuates daily). Structure of the prison Since it was established in 1964, the prison has been systematically expanded, so that Pollsmoor today comprises five prisons: * The Admission Centre serves a number of the courts in the Cape Peninsula ( Cape Town, Mitchell's Plain, Somerset West and Wynberg). * Medium A Prison houses both awaiting trial and sentenced juveniles between the ages of 14 and 17. * Medium B Prison houses sentenced adult males. * Medium C Prison houses sentenced adult males with sentences of up to a year, sentenced adult males on day-parole or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (; ; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist who served as the President of South Africa, first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country's first black head of state and the first elected in a Universal suffrage, fully representative democratic election. Presidency of Nelson Mandela, His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by fostering racial Conflict resolution, reconciliation. Ideologically an African nationalist and African socialism, socialist, he served as the president of the African National Congress (ANC) party from 1991 to 1997. A Xhosa people, Xhosa, Mandela was born into the Thembu people, Thembu royal family in Mvezo, Union of South Africa. He studied law at the University of Fort Hare and the University of Witwatersrand before working as a lawyer in Johannesburg. There he became involved in anti-colonial and African ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Numbers Gang
The Numbers Gang is a crime organization that started as a prison gang with one of the most fearsome reputations in South Africa. Although they were founded in KwaZulu-Natal, it is believed that they are present in most South African prisons. The gang is divided into groups or camps named the ''26s'', ''27s'' and ''28s'' or the other non gang members called 'weifies' partially meaning women. Origin and history The Numbers Gang was started in the late 1800s, supposedly to protect black mineworkers. The origins of the gang remain uncertain at best. Amongst gang members, the likely apocryphal story of Nongoloza and Ngeleketshane is claimed as the gang's origin. The Numbers Gang story holds that a man named Paul Mambazo became alarmed by the exploitation of miners in late 1800 South Africa. Paul allegedly befriended a young zulu boy, a member of the Zulu called Nongoloza who said he was on his way to the mines to look for work, and Ngeleketshane, a member of the Pondo tribe. P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oscar Mpetha
Oscar Mafakafaka Mpetha was born in Mount Fletcher 5 August 1909 and died on 15 November 1994. He was a South African trade unionist and political activist. Personal life Mpetha was educated at local schools and at Adams College. In the 1930s, he married Rose Constance Nombunga Mpetha, they had two children. He died on 15 November 1994 at his Gugulethu home. Political career In 1934 he went to Cape Town as a migrant worker. He started his union activities when he was a road labourer in 1940 and began working as an assistant foreman. He had also previously been employed as a dock worker, waiter, hospital orderly, and later as a factory worker. He joined the Food and Canning Workers' Union when he worked at a fish canning factory in Laaiplek, he was involved as a trade unionist and political leader in the AFCWU in the late 1940s and early 1950s and in 1951 he became the General Secretary. In 1954, he joined the Communist Party, he also attended the conference of the South African ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ahmed Kathrada
Ahmed Mohamed Kathrada (21 August 1929 – 28 March 2017), sometimes known by the nickname "Kathy", was a South African politician and anti-apartheid activist. Kathrada's involvement in the anti-apartheid activities of the African National Congress (ANC) led him to his long-term imprisonment following the Rivonia Trial, in which he was held at Robben Island and Pollsmoor Prison. Following his release in 1990, he was elected to serve as a member of parliament, representing the ANC. He authored a book, ''No Bread for Mandela – Memoirs of Ahmed Kathrada, Prisoner No. 468/64''. Early life Ahmed Kathrada was born on 21 August 1929 in the small country town of Schweizer-Reneke in the Western Transvaal, Kathrada 2004, p. 373 the fourth of six children in a Gujarati Bohra family of South African Indian immigrant parents from Surat, Gujarat. Once in Johannesburg, he was influenced by leaders of the Transvaal Indian Congress such as Dr. Yusuf Dadoo, IC Meer, Moulvi and Yusuf Cachali ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raymond Mhlaba
Raymond Mphakamisi Mhlaba (12 February 1920 – 20 February 2005) was an anti-apartheid activist, Communist and leader of the African National Congress (ANC) also as well the first premier of the Eastern Cape. Mhlaba spent 25 years of his life in prison. Well known for being sentenced, along with Nelson Mandela, Govan Mbeki, Walter Sisulu and others in the Rivonia Trial, he was an active member of the ANC and the South African Communist Party (SACP) all his adult life. His kindly manner brought him the nickname "Oom Ray". Personal life Mhlaba was born in Mazoka village in the Fort Beaufort district, Eastern Cape and was educated at Healdtown secondary school but had to drop out because of financial problems Mhlaba started working at a laundry in Port Elizabeth after leaving school in 1942. He met and married his first wife, Joyce Meke, who was also from the Fort Beaufort area in 1943. In their 17 years together, before her death in a car accident in 1960, they had three child ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Long Walk To Freedom (book)
''Long Walk to Freedom'' is an autobiography credited to South African President Nelson Mandela. It was ghostwritten by Richard Stengel and first published in 1994 by Little Brown & Co. The book profiles his early life, coming of age, education and 27 years spent in prison. Under the apartheid government, Mandela was regarded as a terrorist and jailed on the infamous Robben Island for his role as a leader of the then-outlawed African National Congress (ANC) and its armed wing the Umkhonto We Sizwe. He later achieved international recognition for his leadership as president in rebuilding the country's once segregationist society. The last chapters of the book describe his political ascension and his belief that the struggle still continued against apartheid in South Africa. Mandela dedicated his book to "''my six children, Madiba and Makaziwe (my first daughter) who are now deceased, and to Makgatho, Makaziwe, Zenani and Zindzi, whose support and love I treasure; to my tw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Department Of Correctional Services (South Africa)
The Department of Correctional Services is a department of the South African government. It is responsible for running South Africa's prison system. The department has about 34,000 staff and is responsible for the administration of 240 prisons, which accommodates about 189,748 inmates. The prisons include minimum, medium and maximum security facilities. The agency is headquartered in the West Block of the Poyntons Building in Pretoria. The political head of the department is the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, who is supported by a Deputy Minister of Correctional Services. the minister is Ronald Lamola and the deputy minister is Patekile Holomisa. In the 2020 budget, R26,800.0 million was appropriated for the department. In the 2018/19 financial year the department had 38,459 employees. Correctional centres The 178 prisons run by the department include: * 9 women-only prisons * 13 prisons for young offenders * 40 prisons for male offenders * 72 prisons for bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zwelethu Mthethwa
Zwelethu Mthethwa (born 1960) is a South African painter and photographer. He was convicted of murder in 2017, and is currently incarcerated at Pollsmoor Prison. Biography Mthethwa, a native of Durban, graduated from the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town. In 1985 he received a Fulbright Scholarship to study at the Rochester Institute of Technology, where he received a Master of Fine Arts degree in imaging arts in 1989. Upon returning home, he worked for some years in business, and then became a lecturer on photography and drawing at the Michaelis School in 1994. He left the post in 1999 to devote himself full-time to his art. Mthethwa is known for his large format color photographs, but also works in paint and pastel; he has had over 50 solo exhibitions in galleries around the world. His work was included in the 2005 Venice Biennale and the 2004 Gwangju Biennale. Murder conviction In 2014, Mthethwa was charged with the murder of a 23-year-old woman named N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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] |
Tokai, Cape Town
Tokai, a large residential suburb of Cape Town, South Africa, is situated on the foothills of the Constantiaberg, (a large whaleback shaped mountain in the Table Mountain range) and is bordered by Steenberg and Kirstenhof to the south, Bergvliet to the east, Constantia to the north and the SAFCOL pine tree plantations against the mountain to the west. History In 1791 or 1792, governor Johan Isaac Rhenius bestowed the area of Tokai to Johannes Rauk, a colonist originally born in Narva, Estonia, who became one of the first farmers in the Dutch Cape Colony. Tokai, named after Tokaj, a range of hills in Hungary, was originally an open area with various wine farms and smallholdings. Today, though most of the wine farms are no longer there, there are still a few old Cape Dutch houses like those found in Constantia. The suburb was built in the late 1940s, and was built quickly because of the urgent need for housing for predominantly white, English-speaking South African soldiers ret ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marlene Lehnberg
Marlene Lehnberg (15 October 1955 – 7 October 2015) was a South African murderer more commonly known as The Scissor Murderess. She was 18 years old in 1974 when she hired Marthinus Choegoe to stab Susanna Magdalena van der Linde, the wife of Lehnberg's 47-year-old lover Christiaan van der Linde, to death with a pair of scissors. At age 19, she was then the youngest woman to be convicted of murder in South Africa. Both Lehnberg and Marthinus Choegoe were condemned to death. However, both sentences were reduced to prison terms. Lehnberg served 11 years of a 20-year sentence in Pollsmoor Prison outside Cape Town. Choegoe's sentence was reduced to 15 years. The case set a precedent in South Africa in terms of juveniles and capital punishment; while the Criminal Procedure Act, 1977 permitted the sentencing to death of a person under 18 years, ''S v. Lehnberg'' made clear that an abundant presumption, given the presupposition of immaturity, would be in favour of a prison sentence for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Sisulu
Walter Max Ulyate Sisulu (18 May 1912 – 5 May 2003) was a South African anti-apartheid activist and member of the African National Congress (ANC). Between terms as ANC Secretary-General (1949–1954) and ANC Deputy President (1991–1994), he was incarcerated on Robben Island, where he served more than 25 years' imprisonment for his activism. He is known for his close partnership with Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela, with whom he played a key role in organising the 1952 Defiance Campaign and the establishment of the ANC Youth League and Umkhonto we Sizwe. He was also on the Central Committee of the South African Communist Party. Early life Sisulu was born in 1912 in Ngcobo in the Union of South Africa, part of what is now the Eastern Cape province (then the Transkei). Not unusual for his generation in South Africa, he was not certain of his birthday, but celebrated it on 18 May. His mother, Alice Mase Sisulu, was a Xhosa domestic worker and his father, Albert Victor Di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
