8

December 15

2012

NEWS

S AT U R D AY S TA R

Solitary confinement case uncovers abuses

After 293 days, man lodges Concourt application. By Carolyn Raphaely
NYONE who thinks solitary confinement is a thing of the past, should spare a thought for Phakamisa Tozi, who has been detained in what is now termed segregated confinement for 293 consecutive days in Port Elizabeths St Albans Correctional Centre. This week Tozi launched an urgent application seeking a Constitutional Court order compelling Minister of Correctional Services Sibusiso Ndebele, the head of St Albans Maximum Correctional Facility , the area commissioner of correctional services and Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Jeff Radebe to bring an end to his unlawful segregation. With a post-Marikana spotlight on South Africas increasingly dubious record of human-rights violations, it looks like Tozi will spend Christmas behind bars in a 4m x 3m single cell with 15 minutes of exercise a day and drastically limited privileges. For example, he is not permitted to attend church, school or communal exercise, has been barred from socialising with fellow inmates and has no access to reading material, TV or radio. Sentenced in 2009 to nine years for housebreaking and theft, Tozi, 29, has been held in segregated confinement since February 29 this year in contravention of the provisions of the Correctional Services Act which does not permit segregation exceeding seven days. The act allows for a 30-day extension, only if a psychologist certifies that further detention will not be harmful to the inmates health. In the past, solitary confinement was commonly employed as a punitive meas-

DCS RESPONSE
PHAKAMISA Tozi has neither been detained in solitary confinement in Port Elizabeths St Albans Correctional Centre, nor under unlawful segregation. Tozis incarceration is in accordance with the provisions of the Correctional Services Act. His rights have not been infringed. Tozi is known as a high-ranking leader of one of the prison gangs. Tozi assaulted correctional officials on two separate occasions. On February 19, 2012, Tozi stabbed an official (Mr Mahaluba) at St Albans, was found guilty , sentenced to 18 months imprisonment and reclassified as a maximum offender. Due to this classification, his transfer to Kokstad Super Maximum Correctional Centre is currently being processed. It is DCSs prerogative to incarcerate offenders according to their classification and capacity of centres without prejudice. Tozis claims that he was assaulted by DCS officials are untrue. In fact, he has assaulted correctional officials on two separate occasions. Following the stabbing of Mahaluba, the offender was placed in the special care unit (a single cell, and not solitary confinement) in accordance with section 30 of the Correctional Services Act, Act 111 of 1998 The head of the maximum correctional centre applied for the extension of his incarceration in the special care unit to the area commissioner and approval was granted. This application was processed in accordance with section 30 of the Correctional Services Act. Tozi was to be transferred to Kokstad Super Maximum Correctional Centre after his reclassification as a maximum offender. Due to a pending criminal case against him, he has had to be kept at St Albans Maximum Centre pending the finalisation of this charge. This contributed to the number of days he was kept in the special care unit for security reasons. It was, and still is, practically impossible for the department to place the offender in a communal cell.

INJURY: Wandile Tozi has brought an urgent application to compel prison warders to stop assaulting him, and to ensure that he receives medical attention for his injuries.
ure for political prisoners. Now it appears criminals are suffering the same fate. In his Constitutional Court application this week, Tozi states that his continued segregation is unlawful in terms of South African law and infringes his constitutional rights including his right to human dignity , bodily and psychological integrity, his right to be detained in conditions consistent with human dignity and his right not to be tortured or treated or punished in a cruel, inhuman or degrading way . According to human rights lawyer Egon Oswald, who is representing Tozi, his ongoing segregated confinement is also in breach of South Africas international law and treaty-based obligations particularly

international principles relating to prisoner rights, dignity , torture and cruel inhuman or degrading treatment. Tozis conditions of detention amount to torture. They contravene the Correctional Services Act of 1998, the South African Constitution and the UN Convention on Civil and Political Rights After a fight broke out between a St Albans official and Tozi at the beginning of the year, Tozi claims he was assaulted by 10 correctional services officials, beaten with batons, kicked, hit and stabbed in the head with a knife by a warder before being placed in a single cell. Here, Tozi says, he was shocked by warders using shockboards until a departmental official, who witnessed the assault, prevented the torture from continuing. During the course of these assaults, Tozi sustained severe injuries to his head, face, legs, one of his hands and body , including two open bleeding head wounds. He was subsequently admitted to the regional hospital for six days before being returned to the isolation cell where he remains to this day . For the first 60 days of his segregated confinement, he was shackled inside his cell. Though prison officials have claimed that Tozis ongoing incarceration is a result of gang-related activities, he denies this in his Constitutional Court application. In May , Oswald wrote to the correctional services provincial commissioner, the minister of correctional services and the correctional services national commissioner stating that Tozi was being detained under inappropriate inhumane conditions and demanding that his unlawful

URGENT MATTER: St Albans Correctional Centre inmate Wandile Tozi.

segregation be immediately terminated, but to no avail. As a result, two months ago Oswald launched an urgent application in the Port Elizabeth High Court to change the conditions of his clients detention. When Justice Phakamisa Tshiki ruled that the matter was not urgent, Tozi was left with no alternative but to approach the Constitutional Court. This is an extremely urgent matter, says Oswald. Theres no way the law permits segregated incarceration for a period of 292 consecutive days. If Tozi is guilty of an offence, he must be sent to court, tried and be sentenced. This is torture. Now Tozi is claiming that his segregated confinement not only infringes his constitutional rights, but also poses an immediate threat to his mental and physical health. Following an earlier unlawful search by correctional services officials, Tozi was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and suicidal thoughts and started receiving treatment in late 2010. Tozi claims his mental and emotional state has deteriorated significantly since then as a result of his confinement. Its not the first time allegations of torture by prison officials in St Albans have come under the spotlight. In 2005, for example, prison officials went on a prison-wide rampage of assaults, torture and beatings of inmates following the stabbing of a warder. This resulted in former inmate Bradley McCallum, represented by Oswald, successfully prosecuting the government for violating its international treaty law obligations at the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva (UNHRC). McCallum and 230 others are now suing the minister of correctional services for damages in what is expected to be the largest damages claim ever brought against correctional services officials. The case is expected to be heard during the course of next year. Nonetheless, seven years later the warders implicated in these assaults remain in their jobs and a correctional services investigation has still not been concluded in spite of an instruction by the UNHRC. Says Oswald: Acts of segregation and torture are not limited to St Albans, this is a malaise occurring in prisons nationwide Carolyn Raphaely is a member of the Wits Justice Project.

Old-clothes-for-new drive a good fit for Star charities

SAMANTHA HARTSHORNE
SHOPPING malls around South Africa will be more than just a haven for buyers this festive season. Thanks to Timberland, shoppers can now also give to the needy at their favourite centres. Old for New bins in Timberland stores aim to entice customers into donating secondhand clothing to The Star Christmas Fund beneficiaries, which include old-age homes, orphanages, city welfare organisations and NPOs. Shoppers not only get the chance to hand over used clothing to a bona fide distributor, but receive 15 percent discount on Timberland purchase to boot. According to Bashir Bessy , retail manager for Timberland, the response to the charity drive has been overwhelming and the initiative is a good fit for the outdoor clothing brands core focus on recycling. We are calling on people to donate their shoes and gear any brand for a good cause. People are taking off their shirts and shoes in store and walking out with the new ones on. The bins were placed in all 24 of the outdoor and footwear stores countrywide on Friday for the festive shopping rush and will remain there early into the New Year. Timberland, an outdoor and footwear specialist manufacturer, has been trading in South Africa since 1996. After the Christmas season, the collected clothing will be distributed to the underprivileged by the Star Christmas Hamper fund. The newspaper fund focuses on distributing food parcels to

OLD FOR NEW: Store manager Nondumiso Msikinya of the Timberland store in Hyde Park Shopping Centre holds up donated goods exchanged for 15 percent discount on new goods.
registered needy organisations at Christmas time and the same beneficiaries will be handed the collected clothing. Timberland sees the project as a local symbolic move to augment their brand in terms of protecting the planet. Their in-house earthkeepers range is the flagship green merchandise, sporting characteristic recycled soles and bio-degradeable materials. Timberland has been at the forefront of using earth-friendly products. As an outdoor brand we need to protect the outdoors or we (will perish). So getting secondhand clothing to the less fortunate is part of it, said Bessy . Other earth-friendly projects include re-netting by re-using fishing web in a variety of ways and recycling coffee beans. Bessie says Timberland will be working with The Star on other initiatives, once the platforms for assembling the goods have been established in the stores. Its about time we showed the world that we can do something better than the rest.

More choose to do their festive shopping online

BIANCA CAPAZORIO
FACED with the prospect of huge crowds, pan-pipe Christmas carols on repeat and fights over parking spaces, more South Africans are opting to do their Christmas shopping online this year. South African site Kalahari.com, which sells everything from books to coffee machines, says this week has been their busiest to date. The online retailer has seen a 30 percent increase in sales from last year. Their annual survey of shoppers with an internet connection, released earlier this month, indicates that more shoppers are foregoing the busy rush of festive shopping malls for the convenience of online shopping, spokeswoman Liz Hillock said. Hillock said last years annual festive season shopping survey showed that only 13 percent of connected shoppers elected to hit the malls for their seasonal shopping a number which had decreased to 9.6 percent this year. The survey also showed that 92 percent were planning to shop online this year, up five percent from last year. Yuppiechef.com, a South African website selling cooking and kitchenware, said they were shipping double the number of daily orders this year. Gary Hadfield, chief executive of local online retailer Loot.co.za, said that, given the festive season trading period comprised just less than a quarter of their annual trading, we tactically relaunched the Loot website at the end of November. A survey this month of more than 6 000 shoppers, by online research group Columinate, found that 44 percent of South Africans still intended to shop in a mall. A third said they would buy certain things online.