Sedick Isaacs

Sedick Isaacs (24 May 1940 – 18 October 2012) was a South African anti-Apartheid activist, physician, professor, and author.

Isaacs is best known for his 2010 book Surviving in the Apartheid Prison in which he detailed the experiences of his nearly thirteen-year prison sentence from 1964 to 1977 at Robben Island Prison in South Africa. During his time at Robben Island, he educated Jacob Zuma and Dikgang Moseneke, was an associate of Nelson Mandela, and was a co-founder of the Robben Island football club Makana F.A.

Isaacs is also well known for his contributions to the field of health informatics in Africa as founding president of both Health Informatics in Africa (HELINA) and the South African Health Informatics Association (SAHIA). He was also the Professor of Medical Informatics at the University of Cape Town from 1986 to 2005.

Background Sedick Isaacs was born to a coloured Cape Malay Muslim family on May 24, 1940, in the Bo-Kaap neighborhood of Cape Town, South Africa. He was the second of four children born to Hassim Isaacs, a businessman in the fishing industry, and Gadidja Isaacs (née Salie). His father died in 1946 and his mother became a seamstress for an income after failing to keep the fishing business alive. He was interested in science from a young age, often experimenting with chemical explosives, electronic circuits, and Tesla coils as a primary schooler. It was at Trafalgar that he become close with a student of his named Achmad Cassiem. Despite being only 15 years old at the time, Cassiem was a member of an anti-Apartheid student sabotage group, which Isaacs joined and trained with his knowledge of explosives. Cassiem was already being monitored by the Special Police as a potential saboteur, and Isaacs' involvement with Cassiem led the police to monitor him as well.

Arrest and prison On one evening in 1964, Isaacs, Cassiem, and friends Marnie Abrahams and Solly Keraan were testing the explosive capabilities of picric acid at Strandfontein Beach in Strandfontein on the False Bay side of Cape Town. On Cassiem's suggestion, the group travelled into Cape Town to test the remaining acid on an electrical substation, but the group was arrested on De Waal Road in Diep River and taken to the South Africa Police station in Woodstock. He entered Robben Island on December 2, 1964, as prisoner 883/64, a "D" Category inmate, an inmate with the lowest amount of privileges.

While staying at Robben Island, Isaacs was regularly abused, tortured, and malnourished by the guards. He was subjected to excessive solitary confinement during his sentence. His first stay in solitary confinement began in 1965 as punishment for a hunger strike aimed at protesting the guard beatings. The prison tribunal did not sentence him for the hunger strike, instead sentencing him based on accusations of smuggling his reasons for the hunger strike out to mainland news sources. Isaacs spent eleven months consecutively between 1965 and 1966 in solitary confinement. both of whom studied mathematics under Isaacs while each serving ten year sentences for anti-Apartheid activities. Isaacs was also at Robben Island while Nelson Mandela was incarcerated there.

Isaacs was reported to have made five unsuccessful escape attempts from the prison. In 1969, his sentence was extended by nine months he was discovered using a contraband radio to help keep him and his fellow inmates informed on the anti-Apartheid resistance. He was released from Robben Island on September 25, 1977, with a two-year banning order that was extended by five years upon its expiration in 1979.

Career After his release from Robben Island, Isaacs attempted to enroll in postgraduate studies at the University of Cape Town, but was denied by Minister of Justice Jimmy Kruger due to his banning order. Despite this, he was able to meet with University of Cape Town professors discreetly in the Cape Town Botanical Gardens to engage in private lectures. He travelled to Germany in 1990 where he began studying for his PhD in Epidemiology, which he received from University of Cape Town in 1991. Isaacs was elected HELINA's first president and was later elected president of IMIA's South African branch, the South African Health Informatics Association, upon its establishment in 1994. He became the regional coordinator for all of IMIA's operations in Africa in 1996. It was through these three positions that Isaacs would become instrumental in the development and expansion of health informatics in Africa.

Death and family Isaacs married Maraldea Davids in 1979.

Throughout his career, Isaacs received the following honors:

Honorary Fellow of the International Medical Informatics Association, 1986, 2010 Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, 1991 Chartered Member of the British Computer Society, 1991 Sports Icon of the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture, 2010