Tutu and Mkhatshwa join solidarity fast

Bishop Desmond Tutu of the Anglican Church, and Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa of the Catholic Church, held a morning-to-sunset hunger strike to support the hunger strike of prisoners held under the emergency regulations at the Johannesburg prison. About 100 prisoners started their fast earlier on Wednesday demanding that the State of Emergency be lifted throughout the country, all political prisoners be released, and the South African Defence Force withdrawn from the townships. The hunger strike drew sympathy from different quarters of South Africa, prompting officials to complain that the strike was orchestrated from outside. Prison officials, specifically, blamed the Transvaal Indian Congress for manipulating prisoners, because the organization publicly gave its support to the strikers.