Use South African English from March 2026

Necklacing is a method of extrajudicial summary execution and torture carried out by forcing a rubber tyre drenched with petrol around a victim's chest and arms, and setting it on fire. The term "necklace" originated in the mid-to-late 1980s, in the black townships of apartheid-era South Africa, where suspected apartheid collaborators were publicly executed in this fashion by uMkhonto weSizwe (MK).

apartheid law in South Africa