On 5 August 1962, Nelson Mandela was arrested and imprisoned in Johannesburg. A lawyer, he had been a member of the African National Congress (ANC) since 1944. His arrest followed seventeen months in hiding because he was one of the founders of the ANC's armed organization. Indeed, after several decades of peaceful struggle to no avail, some ANC leaders decided to wage an armed struggle against the apartheid laws introduced by the South African National Party government in 1948. He was sentenced first to five years in prison and then on 11 June 1964 to life imprisonment at a second trial. He t...

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Nelson Mandela’s release from prison took place on 11 February 1990 without conditions in front of the world's media. President de Klerk had announced the lifting of the ban on the ANC and several other anti-apartheid organizations nine days earlier. Nelson Mandela had refused to negotiate because a prisoner is no free to enter into a contract. This was the beginning of the negotiations that led to the first multi-racial general election on 27 April 1994. The ANC won by a large margin (62.6% of the vote) and to the election of Nelson Mandela as President of the Republic of South Africa. ...

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