The World : Death Fast Threatened

More than 100 political detainees jailed without trial in Johannesburg, South Africa, said they would begin a death fast unless the government let them go. Twenty other anti-apartheid prisoners in Johannesburg are in the third week of a fast, and 53 more stopped taking food a week ago. “We are fully aware that various diseases, complications, blindness and even death might result from such a hunger strike. However, we cherish our freedom more deeply,” the 118 detainees said in a letter to Law and Order Minister Adriaan Vlok. The prisoners, many of school age, have been held for up to 2 1/2 years under South Africa’s emergency regulations, designed to crush black opposition to apartheid laws on racial segregation.