Cape Town - On what is considered the holiest and most sacred day for Muslims, the nation laid to rest Imam Achmad Cassiem, a tireless fighter for justice, not just in South Africa but worldwide.
Born on December 12, 1945, Cassiem died during the early hours of Friday at 77.
His daughter Waghieda said her father passed on at around 2.55am at his home in Hoek Street, Lansdowne. Cassiem had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in January.
His funeral saw hundreds gathered to pay their final respects. Funeral prayers were conducted at Habibia Soofie Masjid with the burial at the Johnson Road Cemetery in Rylands.
Waghieda said her father’s memory would be kept alive, “by continuing what he was fully engaged in and that is resisting and fighting any form of oppression, ensuring that justice prevails.”
Cassiem’s fight against apartheid began when he was just 15 years old and joined the armed Struggle. At the age of 17, he, along with his teacher Sadiq Isaacs, was arrested and charged under the Sabotage Act.
While in prison, Cassiem, sentenced to hard labour, attempted to expose the harsh conditions prisoners faced by smuggling letters to Amnesty International and the International Red Cross, an action which would result in corporal punishment.
“Robben Island was called Devil’s Island for a particular reason – because it was one of the worst prisons in the world,” Cassiem said during an interview with Innovative Minds in 2002.
The Robben Island Museum said Cassiem was one of the youngest to be imprisoned on Robben Island under a five-year sentence.
Cassiem would be arrested on numerous occasions, including contravening a banning order for attending Jumuah prayers (Friday congregational prayers), inciting opposition against racist education and contravention of the Terrorism Act.
Just this year, in spite of ailing health, Cassiem was at the forefront of the march and protest in support of the people of Palestine organised by Qibla on April 14, of which Cassiem is a founding member.
Cassiem also served as the Pan African Congress of Azania (PAC) secretary general, Islamic Unity Convention (South Africa) national chairperson, and an adviser to the Islamic Human Rights Commission.
President Cyril Ramaphosa was among those who expressed sadness at the passing of Cassiem.
“Imam Cassiem lived a life of courage, principled and faith in mobilising communities on the Cape Flats and around the country against apartheid. Imprisonment, confinement to his home in Hanover Park and repeated harassment and detention by the apartheid security machine failed to extinguish the flame of resistance and revolution that burned in his being and which he ignited in everyone he inspired as an activist,” he said.
shakirah.thebus@inl.co.za