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This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. It is the product of almost two decades of research and includes analyses, chronologies, historical documents, and interviews from the apartheid and post-apartheid eras.

Weinberg, Sheila

Sheila was the daughter of two of SA's most intrepid anti-apartheid activists, Violet and Eli Weinberg, and was born into the struggle against apartheid..

In 1964 she was held for 62 days under the 90-day detention law during which time she went on a hunger strike for 20 days. She was also subjected to mental torture.

In 1965, when a student at Wits, she was sentenced to 18 months under the Suppression of Communism Act for painting a slogan on a bridge in support of the banned ANC. On appeal her sentence was reduced to six months hard labour at Barberton, where her mother was also a prisoner having been imprisoned for helping Bram Fischer.

She and her parents were constantly harassed, and Sheila's passport was confiscated in 1971 during protests following the death in detention of Ahmed Timol.

Her parents went into exile in 1976 and soon afterwards she was banned and placed under house arrest. Her banning order was finally lifted in 1983, the year she became a supporter of the UDF and the Johannesburg Democratic Action Committee.

After the elections in 1994 she became a member of the Gauteng legislature for the ANC.

Sheila died in Johannesburg at the age of 59 in November 2004, survived by her only son.

Source: Sunday Times: 21 November 2004.

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