Civil Death

South Africa is putting to increasing use one of the newest weapons in its arsenal of repression: house arrests. So far Justice Minister Johannes Balthazar Vorster has wielded it against 13 men and women, subjecting them without trial to what one opposition politician called "civil death."

For the next five years, they may not leave their homes from dusk to dawn; four of them may not go out even during the day. None may receive callers, except a doctor or clergyman. Those permitted to leave their homes during the day must report regularly to police. It was enough to make South Africans wonder, said Johannesburg's Sunday Times, "whether they live in a civilized country or a land of nightmarish fantasy."

The arrests were made under a sweeping Sabotage Act steamrollered through a pliant Parliament last spring. Vowing to "tear out Communism here root and branch," Vorster, a wartime Nazi sympathizer, moved against a variety of the government's most outspoken critics. Some were ranking Reds before South Africa banned the Communist Party in 1950; some were vociferous left-wingers. Others were simply liberals, but that makes little difference to Vorster, who considers liberalism "the forerunner of Communism."

His first target was Mrs. Helen Joseph, 57, a greying, English-born divorcee and a founder of the Congress of Democrats, a left-wing organization banned in September under the government's vaguely worded Suppression of Communism Act. Last week Vorster moved against Jack Hodgson, 54, partially disabled World War II veteran and organizer of leftist groups, who must remain in a three-room flat round the clock until 1967. His wife

Rica was luckier; she drew a twelve-hour curfew, thus can go out during the day. Lest they violate the law by talking to "political undesirables," the Hodgsons and several other couples will have to get special dispensations from Vorster to 'communicate with each other."

A dispensation was granted to the children of the married victims, who may have guests "provided that the house-arrested parents do not mix with these visitors." Vorster also promised those under 24-hour curfew that he would reduce it to twelve if they found jobs, but he forbade their leaving home to look for work. His object seems to be to make their lives so miserable they would want to quit the country. Said he: "I'll help them go." But the detained 13, figuring that their very presence was a rebuke to South Africa, stood fast.

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