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Neil Aggett
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Neil Aggett
Neil Hudson Aggett (6 October 1953 – 5 February 1982) was a Kenyan and South African doctor and trade union organiser who died in detention, after being held for 70 days without trial, during which he was tortured by the Security Branch of the apartheid government's South African Police Service. An initial inquest carried out in 1982 cleared the police, but after continued and increased pressure by his sister Jill Burger, partner Liz Floyd, activists, and supporters, a second inquest was held by the High Court in 2020, ruling in December 2022 that Aggett did not die by suicide as claimed, but was killed by members of the Security Branch.
Aggett was born in Kenya before moving to Grahamstown, South Africa, where he attended high school. He did his medical training at the University of Cape Town before moving around the country working in various segregated hospitals. He became involved in the trade union movement while working in a large hospital in Soweto.
Neil Hudson Aggett was born on 6 October 1953 in Nanyuki, Kenya, the eldest child of first-born child of Aubrey and Joy Aggett. His sister is Jill Burger. Their parents were, at that time, according to Burger "very right-wing".
He did some primary schooling in Kenya, before his family moved to South Africa in 1964, where he attended Kingswood College (South Africa) in Grahamstown from 1964 to 1970.
He enrolled for a medical degree at the University of Cape Town in 1971, graduating in 1976.
Aggett worked as a physician in Black hospitals (under apartheid, hospitals were segregated) in Umtata, Tembisa and later at Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto, working in Casualty and learning to speak Zulu.
At Baragwanath, he became involved in the trade union movement. He was appointed an unpaid organiser of the Transvaal Food and Canning Workers' Union, continuing to work night shifts at the hospital to support himself, and also took on an additional role with the Industrial Aid Society, a project of the Wage and Economic Commission which ran a legal aid service and education and literacy programme. He helped to organise the workers at Fatti's and Moni's in Isando and Thembisa, at a critical time when the company faced a growing boycott campaign, which grew into an international boycott, for having unfairly dismissed workers at its factory in Bellville in the Western Cape, for choosing to be represented by their union rather than the company's committee.
Following a historic gathering in Langa, near Cape Town, in August 1981, of unions that had previously been fiercely divided, he was entrusted with building a Transvaal Solidarity Committee. His aim was to form a mass democratic movement that united the unions, to benefit the health and economic improvement of workers.
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Neil Aggett
Neil Hudson Aggett (6 October 1953 – 5 February 1982) was a Kenyan and South African doctor and trade union organiser who died in detention, after being held for 70 days without trial, during which he was tortured by the Security Branch of the apartheid government's South African Police Service. An initial inquest carried out in 1982 cleared the police, but after continued and increased pressure by his sister Jill Burger, partner Liz Floyd, activists, and supporters, a second inquest was held by the High Court in 2020, ruling in December 2022 that Aggett did not die by suicide as claimed, but was killed by members of the Security Branch.
Aggett was born in Kenya before moving to Grahamstown, South Africa, where he attended high school. He did his medical training at the University of Cape Town before moving around the country working in various segregated hospitals. He became involved in the trade union movement while working in a large hospital in Soweto.
Neil Hudson Aggett was born on 6 October 1953 in Nanyuki, Kenya, the eldest child of first-born child of Aubrey and Joy Aggett. His sister is Jill Burger. Their parents were, at that time, according to Burger "very right-wing".
He did some primary schooling in Kenya, before his family moved to South Africa in 1964, where he attended Kingswood College (South Africa) in Grahamstown from 1964 to 1970.
He enrolled for a medical degree at the University of Cape Town in 1971, graduating in 1976.
Aggett worked as a physician in Black hospitals (under apartheid, hospitals were segregated) in Umtata, Tembisa and later at Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto, working in Casualty and learning to speak Zulu.
At Baragwanath, he became involved in the trade union movement. He was appointed an unpaid organiser of the Transvaal Food and Canning Workers' Union, continuing to work night shifts at the hospital to support himself, and also took on an additional role with the Industrial Aid Society, a project of the Wage and Economic Commission which ran a legal aid service and education and literacy programme. He helped to organise the workers at Fatti's and Moni's in Isando and Thembisa, at a critical time when the company faced a growing boycott campaign, which grew into an international boycott, for having unfairly dismissed workers at its factory in Bellville in the Western Cape, for choosing to be represented by their union rather than the company's committee.
Following a historic gathering in Langa, near Cape Town, in August 1981, of unions that had previously been fiercely divided, he was entrusted with building a Transvaal Solidarity Committee. His aim was to form a mass democratic movement that united the unions, to benefit the health and economic improvement of workers.
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