Amnesty International’s (AI) statement of its concerns in South Africa, made to the UN Commission on Human Rights on 5 February 1991, is reproduced here. So far, laws allowing indefinite incommunicado detention without trial and which grant the security forces immunity from prosecution have not been repealed. In 1990 more than 1,500 people were detained incommunicado; reports of assault and torture in police custody persist, with at least 18 people dying in suspicious circumstances. Two of these were Mbuyiselo “Nixon” Phiri, aged 16 and Clayton Sizwe Sithole, after whose death the government ordered the only independent judicial inquiry thus far. AI is also concerned about killings attributed to the security forces and at allegations of their complicity in other killings.
