One-on-one with Adv Bizos
The NEWS had the opportunity to sit down with well known human rights lawyer, Adv George Bizos, to talk about his early life and the Rivonia Trial.
South African hero and freedom icon, Advocate George Bizos SC, said life as a youngster was far from easy.
The NEWS caught up with the human rights lawyer to find out what makes him tick.
Adv Bizos arrived in South Africa with his father 75 years ago from Greece.
He was 13-years-old.
“We came on a ship and arrived in Durban. We then moved to Johannesburg and I did not go to school for three and a half years due to the language barrier,” said Adv Bizos.
He said while working in a general store, a woman came in and demanded that he be released to start school.
“She was an English teacher at Malvern Junior High School and that’s where she took me the following Monday,” he said.
He finished his high school education at Athlone High School.
In 1948 he started at Wits University.
“Because of the racial discrimination at the time, the Apartheid government started questioning why white students at the institution were holding hands and living in harmony with students of other races. Black students were called leftists. That is when I took a stand. I gave a speech during a meeting with fellow students. I said if wanting equal treatment for all makes me a leftist then I am proudly one. The next day newspapers ran a headline, Leftist and proud. It was that article that prompted [late former president] Nelson Mandela to want to see this [Advocate] George,” he said.
Adv Bizos said he became friends with Madiba and stayed friends with him until his death three years ago.
He was part of the team representing Madiba and his fellow comrades in the Rivonia Trial.
When writing a foreword for Adv Bizos’ book, Odyssey to Freedom, Madiba said his tactical skill in matters of the law lead Mr Braam Fischer, who was the leader of their defense team, to include Adv Bizos in the team.
“Indeed it was [Adv] George Bizos who warned us at our first consultation after the Rivonia arrests that [Hendrik] Verwoerd’s government was preparing the ground for the death penalty to be imposed on all of those arrested,” reads the foreword.
The 88-year-old currently works within the Constitutional Litigation Unit of the Legal Resources Centre.
Also read: Saheti hosts Adv Bizos’ birthday
