Tutu Defies S. Africa Ban, Leads March : Nobel Prize Bishop Presents Petition to Johannesburg Police

In what he called an “act of witness” against apartheid, Nobel Peace Prize winner Bishop Desmond Tutu today defied a South African government ban on outdoor gatherings and led a protest march on Johannesburg’s security police headquarters.

The black Anglican Bishop of Johannesburg led about 20 robed church ministers and 30 lay people through the crowded streets to the heavily guarded headquarters, where some detainees have died during interrogation, and handed over a petition protesting detention without trial.

Tutu, dressed in a purple robe and carrying a silver-topped staff, told reporters that the police security chief who took the petition was “gracious” and promised to pass the protest on.

No one was charged in connection with the march.

Protesters Photographed

Tutu was initially confronted by uniformed policemen carrying shotguns, but they were later replaced by security police who photographed and videotaped the group.

Dozens of security police staff members peered from windows of the seven-story headquarters at the reporters and photographers outside. Photographing a police station in South Africa is illegal.

The march, protesting the detention without trial since October of Anglican priest Geoff Moselane, came amid increased protests and rioting over the country’s apartheid racial segregation laws. About 240 people, including clergymen, were arrested last week in a protest march outside Parliament.

A black woman was killed Tuesday night, apparently when riot police fired shotguns to disperse a black crowd erecting roadblocks in the troubled eastern Cape, police said.

Death Toll 40

Her death brought to at least 40 the number of people killed in eastern Cape rioting in the last two weeks, including 19 gunned down by police in a single incident at Uitenhage’s Langa township.

Witnesses said today’s march appeared to have caught police off guard and Tutu was not hindered as he walked through the city center, causing considerable surprise and some consternation among onlookers.

The bishop and his entourage were able to march into the lobby of the police station where they sang hymns while waiting to see Col. Gerrit Erasmus, head of the security police in Johannesburg.

Tutu handed his petition to Erasmus, while traffic police sealed off an entire block around the headquarters in John Vorster Square.