South Africa protests against auctioning of Mandela's cell keys

Barack Obama in Nelson Mandela's former cell (archive image)

Photo: Carolyn Kaster / AP / dpa

In South Africa there is a protest against the planned auctioning of a key for the prison cell of the first black President of the Cape Republic, Nelson Mandela.

Culture minister Nathi Mthethwa emphasized in a statement published on Friday: "This key belongs to the South Africans." He responded to media reports that a US auction house had received the key from a former guard Mandela.

He has to explain how he got his possession.

New York auction house Guernsey's has announced the key auction on its website on January 28th.

A minimum bid has not yet been mentioned there.

Mandela - who had received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work of reconciliation after the abolition of racist apartheid - was imprisoned for 18 years on the prison island Robben Island off Cape Town.

He was only released on February 11, 1990 after a total of 27 years in prison.

As a memorial, Robben Island is now on the World Heritage List and is an important symbol of the fight against oppression in the apartheid era.

"The master key still exists - we don't know whether it was copied," the Minister of Culture told the TV station eNCA.

So far it is unclear whether other objects in addition to the key have reached the auction house from the prison island.

"We will fight to bring him back," announced Mthethwa.

pbe / dpa