‘Pass Laws’ Suspended in South Africa

President Pieter W. Botha today declared a moratorium on arrests of blacks for “pass law” violations and said all those charged or jailed for such offenses will be released.

“People convicted will be released forthwith and those detained pending prosecution will be released as well,” Botha told the all-white house of the Parliament, the House of Assembly.

Botha said suspension of the pass laws, which keep blacks without permits from living and working in urban areas, will take effect next Wednesday.

The same day, the government will disclose its plans for replacing the pass laws with what Botha has said will be a non-discriminatory system of “orderly urbanization.”

The pass laws are among the elements of apartheid most hated by the nation’s black majority because the laws restrict millions of blacks to 10 tribal homelands.

Foes Demanded Repeal

Apartheid foes have demanded repeal of the pass laws but have said they are worried that Botha’s “revised” system may be simply another form of control.

Botha had promised in February to scrap the pass laws by July 1, and said a substitute system of control based on race would not be imposed.

Pass law arrests last year averaged about 350 a day. The current law, requiring blacks to carry a book known as a pass at all times, was introduced in February, 1958, for men and five years later for women.

Its passage triggered the bloodiest police action in the country’s history on March 21, 1960, when 69 blacks were killed by officers who opened fire in the Sharpeville ghetto about 50 miles south of Johannesburg.