He can count himself lucky he doesn't find himself in such conditions.
Image: sora
Remanded in Gauteng on charges of attempted murder, contravening the Immigration Act and defeating the ends of justice, Bellarmine Chitunga Mugabe, the affluent son of the late Robert Mugabe, should be grateful he is not being held in a jail in Zimbabwe.
Before he was falsely convicted and imprisoned for 10 years in various jails in Zimbabwe, Rusty Labuschagne’s experience of being held in remand prisons saw him sharing 5m × 5m unsanitary cells with 40 occupants.
After sentencing he was sent to the Khami Maximum Prison and put in a cell meant for 16 inmates, but which he shared with 78 men. It meant each person was allocated just 33cm of space on the concrete floor. Of 12 toilets, only eight were available, but their flush mechanisms were broken and had to be flushed using buckets of water. Lice were rampant among all prisoners.
Clothing consisted of a short-sleeved shirt and drawstring shorts. No underwear. Clothes had to be washed in the toilet bowls. Food was maize meal and boiled cabbage. Malnutrition and disease were rife. Death was common. In the 10 years in the Khami and Chikurubi prisons, he calculated that more than 2 000 prisoners died, most of them at relatively young ages.
Sadism and brutality were part of the system. The favoured form of beating was to thrash an inmate’s bare feet. Guards would administer up to 100 strokes per foot using rubber batons, 500mm long and 30mm thick. Frequently prisoners were unable to walk afterwards and had to crawl. Dignity was non-existent. Being held out in the open, naked, in freezing conditions, or forced to sit on the tarmac in sweltering conditions for hours at a time were other forms of punishment. When a prisoner had to appear before the officer-in-charge, he would be naked, cuffed, shackled and required to crouch before the arbiter of his fate.
Beating Chains by Rusty Labuschagne is a harrowing read that details the horrors of being in a Zimbabwean jail. | DR DUNCAN DU BOIS Bluff
US President Donald Trump has, during his first term in office (2016–2020) and his current presidency (2025– ), displayed dark personality traits which include callousness, sadism, vindictiveness, narcissism and deceitfulness.
As a keen Australian political observer, I have a deep empathy for the growing number of Americans who are terrified, angered and repelled that they have to endure another two years and nine months of this despicable human being occupying the White House. | Eric Palm Gympie, Australia
The curtain came down on eNCA’s flagship show, The Last Word, on Thursday night as its popular presenter, Shahan Ramkissoon, bid us farewell.
Thursday nights will never be the same again as we will no longer see the charismatic presenter and media personality sitting confidently on his purple chair and fearlessly firing questions at his bewildered guests. No mincing of words, no sugar-coating, no dodging and no mediocrity – he went straight for the jugular.
In one show he grilled ANC spokesman Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri, asking when his party was going to address its governance failures and fire its inefficient and corrupt officials. In another show he asked the Tshwane mayor: “Do you think you deserve your salary?”
Always impeccably dressed in his tailor-made suits, with a stylish wolf-cut hairstyle and perfectly sculpted beard, Ramkissoon could easily be passed off as just another rich playboy out to impress his audience with his looks. Yet beneath the metrosexual persona lay a serious mind on a mission to put the country back on the right track and make it a better place for its citizens.
For this he was much admired, even by those who faced his grilling. Ramkissoon was not just an ordinary television presenter but a master of infotainment. He could mix serious life issues with laughter and humour.
Ramkissoon is studying for his MBA and his focus is shifting to the business world. But he says his TV career is only taking a pause. We are surely going to miss Shahan Ramkissoon. Let us hope he does not follow Trevor Noah to the States. We need fearless journalists like him in our country. | Thyagaraj Markandan Kloof
Most people in South Africa have heard of the film The Mummy’s Curse, probably because it starred a South African.
That curse was on all the archaeologists who disturbed Mr (Arnold) Vosloo’s tomb. There have been some other interesting curses over the centuries, for example, “The Hope Diamond Curse”, apart from the father of all curses, extracted from the Bible. Coming all the way from the Top, it condemns all humanity because of Adam listening to Eve.
The present curse that needs our attention (not that anything can now be done about it) is the one that bedevils the Gaza Strip, where no one has raised a hand to alleviate our suffering. No food, no water, no electricity, no fuel, no gas, no medical supplies. Instead, we were carpet-bombed 24/7. Our hospitals were destroyed, our babies blasted and our limbs amputated while the rest of the world turned a blind eye.
Well, here is the curse: May all of you experience the same plight for the next few decades to come. May Israel, Lebanon, the UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, America, Africa and Europe all go hungry. May all of you be carpet-bombed too because of the wars to come among all of you due to food, water, fuel and energy shortages. May you all become Gaza. It is already happening. | Ebrahim Essa Durban
DAILY NEWS