Smangaliso Mkhatshwa is a Catholic priest who was persecuted by the South African apartheid state. He later became a member of the first post-apartheid parliament (1994) and then mayor of the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality. He was succeeded as mayor in 2005 by Gwen Ramokgopa.

History

Mkhatshwa was arrested under the Internal Security Act

Internal Security Act

The term Internal Security Act is often given to a piece of legislation laying down regulations that enable the executive government of a jurisdiction to preserve the internal security of the nation...

 after the Soweto uprisings

Soweto riots

The Soweto Uprising, also known as June 16, was a series of high school student-led protests in South Africa that began on the morning of June 16, 1976. Students from numerous Sowetan schools began to protest in the streets of Soweto, in response to the introduction of Afrikaans as the medium of...

 (1976) and detained for four months. In 1977 he was served with a five-year banning order, which restricted his movements to the Pretoria

Pretoria

Pretoria is a city located in the northern part of Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is one of the country's three capital cities, serving as the executive and de facto national capital; the others are Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein, the judicial capital.Pretoria is...

 magisterial district. In October 1983 he was arrested in the Ciskei

Ciskei

Ciskei was a Bantustan in the south east of South Africa. It covered an area of 2,970 square miles , almost entirely surrounded by what was then the Cape Province, and possessed a small coastline along the shore of the Indian Ocean....

 region for subversion and inciting public violence, but released after a not guilty verdict in March 1984. In September 1986 he was arrested under emergency regulations in the Transkei

Transkei

The Transkei , officially the Republic of Transkei , was a Bantustan—an area set aside for members of a specific ethnicity—and nominal parliamentary democracy in the southeastern region of South Africa...

 region and tortured by security police (African National Congress n.d.).

He describes his torture as follows:

"I was once arrested by the security police of the apartheid regime. I was tortured for two full days and nights non-stop. I was stripped naked, I was handcuffed behind my back, my ankles were chained, I was blindfolded, I was beaten up, I was insulted, there was a gun that was shot above my own head, I suppose to scare me, I was spat at, all sorts of things were done, and of course electric shocks..." (ABC Radio National 2004).