In The News

Former anti apartheid campaigner passes away

Former anti apartheid campaigner passes away

The death has taken place in South Africa of Kader Asmal who was a former anti apartheid campaigner with strong links to Dublin. He was 77.

Professor Asmal spent 27 years as a law lecturer at Trinity College, Dublin, while also opposing apartheid in his homeland.

He travelled throughout the country to support anti apartheid groups in their efforts.

He returned to South Africa in 1990 and was elected to the country’s National Assembly in 1994 when he was appointed as minister of water affairs and forestry, before becoming minister of education in 1999.

In 2008 he left Parliament to become professor in the faculty of law at the University of Cape Town.

Professor Asmal, who was a member of the ANC’s national executive committee, is understood to have died after suffering a heart attack.

Many tributes were paid to him.

ANC spokesman Keith Khoza said his death had left South Africa “poorer without his voice of reason”.

In Dublin, Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore said Kader Asmal had been an “outstanding man, an eminent scholar and a courageous politican”.

 

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