Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, also known as Winnie Mandela, was a South African anti-apartheid activist and the second wife of Nelson Mandela. She served as a Member of Parliament from 1994 to 2003, and from 2009 until her death, and was a deputy minister of arts and culture from 1994 to 1996. A member of the African National Congress (ANC) political party, she served on the ANC's National Executive Committee and headed its Women's League. Madikizela-Mandela was known to her supporters as the "Mother of the Nation".
The Boeremag was a far-right white supremacist terrorist organisation in South Africa. The South African government described them as a South African right-wing terrorist organization with white separatist aims. The Boeremag were accused of planning to overthrow the ruling African National Congress government and to reinstate a new Boer-administered republic reminiscent of the era when Boers administered independent republics during the 19th century following the Great Trek.
The Rivonia Trial was a trial that took place in apartheid-era South Africa between 9 October 1963 and 12 June 1964, after a group of anti-apartheid activists were arrested on Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia. The farm had been the secret location for meetings of uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the newly-formed armed wing of the African National Congress. The trial took place in Pretoria at the Palace of Justice and the Old Synagogue and led to the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Ahmed Kathrada, Denis Goldberg, Raymond Mhlaba, Elias Motsoaledi, Andrew Mlangeni. Many were convicted of sabotage and sentenced to life.
Raymond Mphakamisi Mhlaba OMSG 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".
Helen Suzman, OMSG, DBE was a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician. She represented a series of liberal and centre-left opposition parties during her 36-year tenure in the whites-only, National Party-controlled House of Assembly of South Africa at the height of apartheid.
Abraham Louis Fischer was a South African Communist lawyer of Afrikaner descent with partial Anglo-African ancestry from his paternal grandmother, notable for anti-apartheid activism and for the legal defence of anti-apartheid figures, including Nelson Mandela, at the Rivonia Trial. Following the trial, he was himself put on trial accused of furthering communism. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and diagnosed with cancer while in prison. The South African Prisons Act was extended to include his brother's house in Bloemfontein where he died two months later.
Ahmed Mohamed Kathrada OMSG, sometimes known by the nickname "Kathy", was a South African politician and anti-apartheid activist.
The Constitutional Court of South Africa is the supreme constitutional court established by the Constitution of South Africa, and is the apex court in the South African judicial system, with general jurisdiction.
The Treason Trial was a trial in Johannesburg in which 156 people, including Nelson Mandela, were arrested in a raid and accused of treason in South Africa in 1956.
Valli Moosa is Deputy Chairperson of the Presidential Climate Commission and Chairperson of the Constitution Hill trust. He was born in Johannesburg and is a veteran of the South African freedom struggle. Valli worked closely with Nelson Mandela during the settlement talks, served as negotiator for the ANC, and participated in drafting the South African Constitution. He served in President Mandela's cabinet as Minister of Constitutional Development, and in President Mbeki's government as Environment Minister. Valli joined the corporate sector in 2004 and currently serves on the board of Sappi Ltd. He has previously served on the boards of Anglo Platinum, Eskom and Sanlam. Valli served as a facilitator in the global climate change negotiations for a number of years. He previously served as President of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), as Chairman of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development and as Chairman of WWF(SA).
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.
Benjamin Pogrund OIS is a South African-born Israeli author.
Prisons in South Africa are run by the Department of Correctional Services. The department is divided into six administrative regions, each with its own regional commissioner, and subdivided into multiple areas, each headed by an area commissioner. According to the ministry, there are approximately 34,000 employees of the department running 240 prisons. In those prisons are nearly 156,000 inmates as of August 2013. The prisons include minimum, medium, maximum and super-maximum security facilities. They may be entirely dedicated to a specific group of prisoners, such as women or children, or be divided into separate sections for each group. Since 2024, the Minister of Correctional Services has been Pieter Groenewald.
Bob Gosani (1934–1972) was a South African photographer.
Esther Barsel was a South African political activist and long-standing member of the South African Communist Party (SACP). She was a member of both her local African National Congress branch and the SACP's Johannesburg Central Branch.
Pretoria Central Prison, renamed Kgosi Mampuru II Management Area by former President Jacob Zuma on 13 April 2013 and sometimes referred to as Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Services is a large prison in central Pretoria, within the City of Tshwane in South Africa. It is operated by the South African Department of Correctional Services.
Dr. Maitshwe Nchuape Aubrey Mokoape was a South African anti-apartheid activist and a leader of the Pan-Africanist Congress and Black Consciousness Movement. He was first arrested and detained at the age of 15. He studied and worked alongside political anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko. In post-apartheid South Africa, Mokoape became a physician.
"I Am Prepared to Die" was a three-hour speech given by Nelson Mandela on 20 April 1964 from the dock at the Rivonia Trial. The speech is so titled because it ended with the words "it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die". It is considered one of the great speeches of the 20th century, and a key moment in the history of South African democracy.
I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live for and to see realised. But my lord, if it needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.
Robben Island Prison is an inactive prison on Robben Island in Table Bay, 6.9 kilometers (4.3 mi) west of the coast of Bloubergstrand, Cape Town, South Africa. Nobel Laureate and former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela was imprisoned there for 18 of the 27 years he served behind bars before the fall of apartheid. Since then, three former inmates of the prison have gone on to become President of South Africa.
This article identifies the historical reform patterns of the South African prison system, focusing on specific actors, social movements, and underlying socio-political factors that precipitated reform before the apartheid struggle and after 1994, transitioning into the current reform challenges facing the South African prison system.
