PAGE 12 — The Georgia Bulletin, April 23, 1987
South African Bishops
Protest New Restrictions
■
BY CARMEL RICKARD
DURBAN, South Africa (NC) — Catholic
bishops in South Africa have strongly
criticized new regulations which make it
an offense to take part in any campaign,
project or action aimed at the release of
detainees held under security laws.
.Bishop Wilfred Napier, head of the
Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Con
ference, called the regulations “draconian
by any standard” and said the church
“will not tolerate them.”
“The government is even seeking to
restrict what the church can or cannot
pray or hold services for," he said in a
statement released April 14.
“The government has made a serious
mistake,” he said. “It should scrap the
new regulations in their entirety."
The new regulations declare unlawful
any form of “calling” on the government
to release detainees. They also outlaw "the
performance of any act as a symbolic
token of solidarity with or in honor of” de
tainees.
Archbishop Stephen Naidoo of Cape
Town, South Africa, said he was outraged
by the restrictions, which appeared to
“prohibit public praying for detainees.”
“This I cannot accept,” said Archbishop
Naidoo. “Certainly in this diocese we will
not accept it. The state is trying to take
away our right to decide for whom we shall
pray. With regard to public prayer, we will
not accept it.”
Archbishop Naidoo and Anglican Arch
bishop Desmond Tutu of Cape Town held
a joint service in St. George’s Anglican
Cathedral April 13 to protest the new
restrictions.
U.S. and British representatives were
among diplomats attending the lunchtime
service.
U.S. Ambassador Edward Perkins, one
of those who attended, later released a
statement which said the regulations put
freedom of speech and movement “in
serious jeopardy.”
South African Minister of Foreign Af
fairs Pik Botha said he would ask his
department to “look at the attendance” of
Perkins at the service and to look at his
statement.
The evening after the service South
Africa’s police commissioner, Gen. Johan
Coetzee, published an “explanation” of the
intent of the regulations. He denied they
were intended to apply to “prayers offered
at a bona fide religious gathering.”
But Bishop Napier said Coetzee's state
ment was “a confidence trick.”
“We are not impressed with the latest
explanations,” he said. “We have seen it
happen before: imposition of strict restric
tions followed by backpedalling and later
stricter enforcement, once the dust has
settled.”
He said the explanation was clearly in
tended to “create a convenient loophole to
avoid having to act against senior church
leaders” such as Archbishops Tutu,
Naidoo and Denis Hurley, who have called
for the release of the detainees.
Bishop Napier said the government
issued the explanation because it was
“afraid to face the wrath of Christians on
election day who will not tolerate a govern
ment that usurps the right to decide the
matters for which Christians may pray to
their God.”
South Africa has scheduled a whites-only
election May 6.
Meanwhile, organizers said they plan
ned to go ahead with an ecumenical ser
vice for detainees in Durban on Good Fri
day, April 17.
Archbishop Hurley, Anglican Bishop
Michael Nuttall of Durban and other
leading Christian ministers were to con
duct the service, which was to include a
special prayer for detainees.
The service also was scheduled to in
clude a procession during which par
ticipants planned to carry crosses to repre
sent children in detention in South Africa.
FREE THE CHILDREN — Archbishop Denis Hurley of Durban,
South Africa, carrying a large wooden cross, leads a Good Friday pro
cession of 600 through a Durban street. Participants carried 49 smaller
crosses symbolizing the children being detained by the government
and appealing for their release. (NC photo from UPI-Reuter)
Catholic, Anglican Sentenced
BY CARMEL RICKARD
PIETERMARITZBURG,
South Africa (NC) — An
Anglican student has been
sentenced to death and a
Catholic social worker
sentenced to jail for their
roles in a June 1986 car
bombing in which three
people were killed.
Robert McBride, a
23-year-old student at a
Durban teachers’ college,
received three death
sentences in a Pieter
maritzburg court April 13.
Greta Applegren, 30. was
sentenced to five years in
jail but will spend less than
two years behind bars
because of suspended or
concurrent sentences.
The two were on trial on
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