Clerics Lead Holy Day Protest in S. Africa Port

Led by the city’s Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops, more than 300 people marched in a religious procession at dawn Friday to Durban’s central prison to call for the release of 16 leaders of South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement who are held there on charges of high treason.

After carrying a 6 1/2-foot wooden cross in turn through the city to mark Good Friday, Catholic Archbishop Denis Hurley and Anglican Bishop Michael Nuttal led the other clergy and laymen in hymns and prayers outside prison walls in the Indian Ocean port city. From within could be heard the voices of the prisoners joining in the hymns and prayers.

The procession was the third in two weeks led by South African churchmen in protest against the government’s policy of racial segregation and its handling of the current unrest.

Permitted by Authorities

Unlike earlier marches on Parliament in Cape Town and on police headquarters in Johannesburg, Friday’s event had the permission of South African authorities on condition that there be no speeches or placards, only prayers and hymns.

“A government that professes to be Christian would have looked ridiculous if it had banned a religious procession led by an archbishop carrying a cross on Good Friday,” said a member of the Durban ecumenical group that organized the protest.

With the group were the wives of three of the prisoners, leaders of the United Democratic Front, a coalition of anti-apartheid groups, who are to be tried May 20 on treason charges. The charges carry the death penalty upon conviction.

2 Slain in Violence

Meanwhile, two more people were killed Friday in continuing violence in eastern Cape province--one shot by police during a firebomb attack on a black township outside Port Elizabeth on the country’s southern coast, and the other reportedly killed by rioters in Langa, a black township outside Uitenhage, northwest of Port Elizabeth.

Police said that the first man was killed early Friday when policemen escorting fire trucks to a house set ablaze in a firebomb attack were confronted by a large crowd and used tear gas, rubber bullets, birdshot and finally buckshot to disperse it. The incident was one of several in which police said they had to use riot-control measures to break up crowds that had stoned them or attacked government facilities or the homes of local officials.

The body of the second man was found in Langa as another crowd tried to burn it with gasoline after stabbing the man to death, police said. The victim was not immediately identified.