17 November 1977
A Black high school student, Sipho Malaza, presumably died on this day thirty years ago while in Security Police custody. His death was the twenty-first in detention since March 1976. An entry in Deaths in Detention gives his details as Bonaventura Sipho Malaza (18) and states that he committed suicide by hanging in the Krugersdorp police cells on 16 November 1977. Another document gives the date of his death as 7 November 1977. Because of these discrepancies the correct date could not be ascertained.
Sources:
Coleman, M. (ed) (1998). A Crime Against Humanity: analysing the repression of the apartheid state, Johannesburg: Human Rights Committee, p. 59.
Kalley, J.A.; Schoeman, E. & Andor, L.E. (eds) (1999). Southern African Political History: a chronology of key political events from independence to mid-1997, Westport: Greenwood.
http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/chronology/special-chrono/governance/youth-general.htm#1970
http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/people/lives-of-courage/pages/wall/deaths-detention.htm