THEAPARTHEIDERA
The minister did not have to give reasons for his decision, and the victim
had no legal means of challenging it.
The repressive legislation escalated from the mid- 195os onward. The
catalog includes the Riotous Assemblies Act (1956), the Unlawful Organi-
zations Act (1960), the Sabotage Act (1962), the General Law Amendment
Act (1966), the Terrorism Act (1967), and the Internal Security Act (1976).
That mass of legislation gave the police vast powers to arrest people with-
out trial and hold them indefinitely in solitary confinement, without re-
vealing their identities and without giving them access to anyone except
government officials.The government could ban any organization, prohib-
it the holding of meetings of any sort, and prevent organizations from
receiving funds :fromabroad. There were also laws giving the government
special powers over Africans, such as the Bantu Laws Amendment Act
(1964), which e:mpoweredthe government to expel any African from any
of the towns or the white farming areas at any time. The Public Safety Act
(1953) included a provision that empowered die government to declare a
state of emergency in any or every part. of the country and to rule by
proclamation, if it considered that the safety of the public or the mainte-