Cape Town - A former journalist and political editor who planted limpet mines as an active member of Umkhonto we Sizwe, Muhammad Rafiq Rohan, has died.
Rohan was one of the last group of political prisoners to be released from Robben Island, and the only journalist imprisoned in 1989.
Born in Overport, Durban, Rohan, in his late sixties, was found dead in his Morningside apartment on Saturday.
Friend Dr Shuaib Manjra said he met Rohan as members of the Muslim Youth Movement (MYM).
Rohan edited the MYM newspaper and was also a graphic artist. Rohan’s notable qualities had been bravery and speaking truth to power, Manjra said.
“He was unflinching in his criticism of the ANC, latterly.”
In May 1991, Amnesty International spotlighted the 190 prisoners who were on a hunger strike to protest the government’s failure to release them by the April 30 deadline agreed to during negotiations with the ANC. Rohan was one of the prisoners from Robben Island who was moved to Somerset Hospital and then later released on May 20, 1991.
Rohan was sentenced to 15 years in prison. On June 26, 2000, Rohan, the Sowetan newspaper’s political editor at the time, sought amnesty at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for placing a limpet mine at the Ridge Road Radio headquarters, the bomb explosion at Natal Command, the bomb blast at CR Swart police station, and the illegal possession of arms.
“Although it was my chosen profession to be a journalist, I often felt that I was not doing enough in the Struggle for liberation. My view was that the armed struggle was necessary because of the military’s role in maintaining apartheid. By striking at the military, I would be striking at the heart of the apartheid state,” Rohan told the commission.
Muslim Views editor and close friend Farid Sayed met Rohan in the 1980s after having worked together as reporters at Muslim News, now Muslim Views.
Sayed said the cause of death was currently unknown and that Rohan was found on the couch when worried neighbours broke down the door.
In 1989, Sayed was contacted by a prison official, who indicated that Rohan had requested for Sayed to visit.
“He gave the phone to Rafiq and he said I want you to come and visit. He said, ‘look I don’t want you to come alone, you must bring your wife Zaitoon, and son Khalid as well’. I said, ‘Are you sure Rafiq’ and he said, ‘yes’.”
Through the glass partition, Rohan mentioned the strange request was because he had missed children, and especially his daughter, who was at the time the same age as Sayed’s 5-year-old son.
“Rafiq Rohan was a committed activist journalist when it wasn’t fashionable. He was a subjective journalist. His stories covered it from a particular bias, a bias in favour of justice.”
Details of the funeral are yet to be announced.