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Kadir Hassim was an accused during the Treason Trial, 1956-1961. On December 5, 1956, hundreds of policemen throughout the country descended on the homes of leaders of the Congress Alliance and arrested them. One hundred and fifty-six people - 104 Africans, 23 Whites, 21 Indians and 8 Coloureds - were charged with high treason, a capital offence in South Africa. The trial lasted until 1961, when all of the defendants were found not guilty. Some of the defendants were later convicted in the Rivonia Trial in 1964.
The state versus K. Hassim and twelve others in the Supreme Court of South Africa, Natal Provincial Division. Kader Hassim and twelve others were charged with participating in terrorist activities and conspiring to overthrow the government of South Africa in 1970 as members of the African People's Democratic Union of South Africa and of the Non-European Unity Movement. Kader Hassim, a Pietermaritzburg attorney, was an office bearer in the African People's Democratic Union of Southern Africa, an affiliate of the Non-European Unity Movement. Arrested in 1971, he was imprisoned on Robben Island for 8 years. Struck off the Role of the Natal Law Society in 1976, he was reinstated in 1996.
He chose to write his name above the introduction of Sonny’s ‘bible’ not really indicating any particular passage but rather just the introduction:
Lines: It is still true in the study of Shakespeare that ‘the dispersion of error is the first step in the discovery of truth’ (The opening lines of the introduction)
We will meet him later today as we set off from Durban to Pietermaritzburg today.
