Jailed Student an Admirer of Bishop Tutu : San Diego Man Arrested in Raid on South African Church

A 19-year-old San Diegan is among the hundreds of people who have been detained by South African police since the government imposed a nationwide state of emergency last week, it was learned Monday.

Scott Daugherty, a student at Humboldt State University who was described by relatives and friends as a great admirer of South African Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu, was arrested Sunday morning by South African security forces who stormed an Anglican church near Cape Town.

Wayne Daugherty, a professor at San Diego State University, said eyewitnesses reported that his son was arrested for participating in an illegal assembly. The Rev. Bill Mahedy, an Episcopal minister and close friend of Scott Daugherty, said he was told by eyewitnesses that Scott was among 250 people, mostly blacks, who were arrested at St. Nicholas Anglican Church in the Cape Town suburb of Elsie’s River. Mahedy said that he does not know if any other Americans were arrested inside the church.

According to Scott’s father, “It was actually a standard Sunday service, where people were praying. . . . My son has a good social conscience. He feels very strongly about things and is very idealistic. I was very concerned about how he was going to react to the Gestapo cops over there.”

Scott Daugherty arrived in South Africa April 17. Expenses for his trip were paid with funds raised by his family and parishioners of St. David’s Episcopal Church in Clairemont. Friends and relatives say that South African officials had given him a one-year visa, but his return flight was scheduled for next month.

“He met Bishop Tutu four years ago and was deeply touched by the bishop’s faith and courage,” said Daugherty’s godmother, Pat Backman. “He admires Bishop Tutu greatly.”

Mahedy, Episcopal chaplain at SDSU and at UC San Diego, referred to Daugherty’s social conscience, which he said moved the young man to go to South Africa to help the victims of apartheid.

“Scott is a very lovely young man with a very deep social conscience,” Mahedy said. “He is also a man with a strong religious spirituality. I last talked to him on Friday and he told me that he had grown spiritually, but was very depressed over the state of affairs over there.”

Wayne Daugherty, a biology professor, said his son has been helping to build child care centers in black communities in South Africa. “Knowing my son, he’s probably been engaging in freedom marches and other so-called illegal activities over there,” Daugherty said.

Eyewitnesses who have talked with Mahedy and Daugherty said that another American was arrested at the same time, but outside the church where Scott Daugherty was taken into custody. The man, who was identified only as a Lutheran minister, was quickly released by police, the eyewitnesses said.

Wayne Daugherty said that U.S. State Department officials have told the family that the South African government has acknowledged young Daugherty’s arrest. The elder Daugherty said the State Department’s call came as a relief because now “Scott can’t get lost in the cracks somewhere.”