TREASON TRIALS

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28263, 29 April 1957, Page 6

TREASON TRIALS

Appeal To Aid Africans

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, April 27. The Rev. Michael Scott, the British clergyman who champions coloured people, today appealed for funds for relatives of 150 persons accused of treason and now being examined before South African Courts. Mr Scott is director of the Africa Bureau, which was formed in 1952 to take a non-racial attitude to African affairs. He said in his appeal: “The use to which the processes of the law are being put in South Africa today is the cause of widespread suffering and fear on the part of many innocent relatives of the accused. “In talking with many people in Ghana and Nigeria recently, I noticed the great interest that was shown by Africans in efforts that are being made by ordinary people in Britain and America to challenge the evil doctrine of apartheid,” he- said. The executive committee of the Africa Bureau is opposing the creation of first and second-class voting lists in the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. In Johannesburg today it was reported that the Transvaal Indian Congress, the main body of Indian political opinion in the Transvaal, has written to the Mayor of Johannesburg asking that semi-segregated transport on certain tramway routes be withdrawn. Such trams, allowing Indians and coloured people to sit in the back and reserving the rest for whites, were introduced this week on some routes. The letter said that transport arrangements had been working smoothly and satisfactorily ir. the past, and had given no cause for any disturbance of race relations.