Activist Winnie Mandela Freed of Restrictions
Black activist Winnie Mandela has been freed of all state-ordered restrictions, police said today, formally ending more than 20 years of government restraints.
Mandela’s name did not appear last week on the government’s annual lists of “banned” people who may not be quoted in South Africa. Police spokesman Capt. Henry Beck said today in Pretoria, “I can confirm that all restrictions on Mrs. Mandela have been lifted.”
Mandela had lived in banishment in a remote rural center, Brandfort, for eight years until she defied state orders and returned to her home in Johannesburg’s Soweto township last August.
Despite government orders, court hearings and being dragged from her home by police last December, she refused to leave. Since late January, police ignored the defiance and her fiery public speeches but refused to say she was free of restraints.
Mandela is the wife of jailed African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela, who began serving a life term in prison in 1964.
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