Tutu’s Eldest Son Jailed for Swearing at White Policeman

Police today detained the eldest son of black Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu for allegedly swearing at a white policeman and announced that they will hold him in prison for 14 days.

Witnesses said Tutu’s 29-year-old son, Trevor, was at the Protea Magistrate’s Court to observe hearings for youngsters arrested last week for allegedly boycotting schools in Soweto, the black township outside Johannesburg. Protea is part of Soweto.

Before the hearings began, Trevor Tutu made a remark about the youthfulness of one suspect. “This is a joke. These people are clowns,” police reported Tutu as saying during the proceedings.

Police took Tutu to the prosecutor’s office, where he was warned about speaking out in court, according to witnesses, who spoke on condition they not be identified.

They said that as white and black police officers escorted Tutu back to the courtroom, he accused a white officer of hypocrisy and used an obscenity.

Driven Away at High Speed

Tutu was whisked from the courtroom by police as he shouted: “This is s------! You are talking s------!” and then was driven away at high speed, witnesses said.

“I’m proud of him,” the Nobel Prize-winning bishop said of his son. “It will have helped focus attention on the massive power the police have and which they are not shy about using.”

Tutu’s mother, Leah, who was also at the court as an observer, said, “My son was detained simply for the ego of that policeman.”

“That policeman had an altercation with my husband last Friday when he (the policeman) tried to arrest some youths,” she said. “Everybody remarked when that young boy’s name was called. I also said it was ridiculous.

“Democracy is still to be imported to this country,” she added. “After all this, who can deny that ours is not a police state?”

Charges Uncertain

Tutu’s attorney, Richard Spoor, said he is being held under emergency powers given police July 21 to put down anti-apartheid rioting. The state of emergency allows detainees to be denied access to their families and lawyers.

It was not immediately clear whether any charges had been filed against Tutu, who is an account executive with a Johannesburg advertising company.

The South African Press Assn. said Tutu was taken to Diepkloof Prison in Soweto.

Woman Wounded

Security police in Durban today detained Paddy Kearney, white director of a church-supported service organization called Diakonia, said Archbishop Denis Hurley, president of the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference. Diakonia is supported by different faiths and helps victims of anti-apartheid rioting.

In continuing racial violence, police said a black woman was seriously wounded late Sunday when officers fired at a group of Coloreds--the South African word for people of mixed race--who were stoning a police vehicle in the Riverlea township near Johannesburg.

Another woman was wounded when a police officer fired his pistol at a crowd of blacks stoning him in the Sonbult black township near the northern Cape Province town of Burgersdorp, police said.