Stanton Hannah
By NICHOLAS MOSLEY
II ANNAli STANTON was arrested at 3.15 a.m. on Wednesday, March 30. She was taken by p1 Wednesday, policemen from her home in an is‘oglican Mission in Pretoria. Since then nothing nas been heard of her. Lawyers cannot see her : relatives do not know where she is. In South Africa now it is an offence even to talk of Hannah Stanton—to say she has been arrested. This is Punishable by £500 ,fine or five years' imprison- Ment. The Government of South Africa has arranged that as far as all human contact is con- cerned, Hannah Stanton has disappeared. Hannah Stanton is a tall, attractive English- woman of forty-five. For three years she has been :ivarden of Tumelong Mission in an African • Location on the outskirts of Pretoria. Most of her life has been dedicated to helping people. She tr_., aineo during the war as a hospital almoner and worked in Liverpool and London. After the war she did relief work with Quakers amongst refugees ill Austria. In 1954 she went to Oxford and took a degree in Theology. In 1957, visiting her brother, an Anglican priest in Johannesburg, she stayed on t° take the job of Warden of Tumelong Mission. Tumelong is an unpretentious building among 9.'s of tin-roofed houses and dusty streets. gannah Stanton, with three other European wQtuen, ran a nursery school, where 300 children PlaYed and did lessons while their mothers were at work; also a training school for 'African social Workers. This was the only one of its kind in S,Qual Africa. Europeans and Africans worked flugether throughout the location—dealing with farnilY and financial troubles, difficulties arising r°41 the pass laws and the police. There were also baptism classes, confirmation classes and undaY schools for Anglicans. , I visited Tumelong last month. What was lintuediately striking was that it was a place where Africans were at home. An African woman acted aN hostess and poured out tea. We all talked with- cult any sense of strain. '
Hannah Stanton showed me round the school and the training class. She spoke of the urgency Of this work : the Africans had to be trained to take over. The Europeans would not be able to Work among them much longer: already there Were Plans for the whole location to be moved b'en miles farther away from Pretoria. The 'Ilropeans were only suffered to be there at the moment because the Government had so much ?Ise to see to. But they were suffered with a very bad grace.
On the night of March 23, Tumelong was searched by plain-clothes police. They went through papers in the office. A policewoman 8taYed with Hannah Stanton even while she went to the bathroom. Then they left, giving no reason kr their visit.
A week later they returned to take Hannah , Stanton away. They had no warrants. At first they refused even to identify themselves as police. They said they'd use force if she resisted.
The sarrre day I drove Fr. Stanton, her brother in Johannesburg, to Pretoria to try to find news of Hannah. At the Pretoria Prison they said she was not there. At the Central Change Office they said she was at the prison. A higher official said it didn't matter where she was. No one was allowed to communicate with her, not even her lawyer or the prison chaplain. According to the emergency regulations, no one was allowed even to speak of her.
The next day a writ of Habeas Corpus was turned down by the Court.
Hannah Stanton is not a political figure. She is a member of the Liberal Party : she once got into the press by climbing on to the platform of a political meeting to defend physically Chief Luthuli, who was being attacked by an Afrikaaner gang. But she is not an agitator. She cares for people, and for truth.
There are two possible reasons why she was arrested. The first is simply that she was one of the few white people in the country still in a posi- tion, and willing, to treat Africans as equal human' beings. Nearly all other Europeans have been moved out of African areas.
Secondly, some months ago. there had been a meeting of African women in the location to pro- test against an extension of the pass laws to apply to women. The meeting was peaceful. It was baton-charged by the police, and many women were injured. Hannah Stanton collected evidence from the injured, so that they could bring cases for damages against the police. These cases were pending.
Another person who had assisted in the collect- ing of evidence was Fr. Nye, a parish priest in Pretoria, and Priest-in-Charge of Tumelong Mis- sion. He, too, was arrested on March 30.
Among the other half-dozen white people who were arrested on the 30th were the two lawyers who, on the instructions of the Bishop of Johan; nesburg, had gone to Baragwanath Hospital and had taken evidence from the injured of the Sharpe- ville shootings.
There might, or might not, be a connection here. But it is significant that all these people who had been collecting factual evidence damning the Government have now been effectively rendered silent by the Government. They can now pass on no evidence to any human beings except their gaolers.
Police States are not new in the world. But that British subjects like Hannah Stanton and Fr. Nye, in the British Commonwealth, should suddenly disappear like this is something new. It must be met with a new kind of protest. They are people who have just acted in a way that nearly all of us in this country say we should act. Their crime is that they have cared for persons and for truth, and that they knew too much about a Govern- ment who does neither. Whether or not they are now left to rot unheard-of in prison, with their relatives not even knowing if they are alive or dead, depends on whether people in this country have one-tenth as much determination as they. There may not be many voices heard in South Africa.
'No, ifs a clean wound: only the police have soft-nosed bullets:
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