Newspapers were often targeted by the apartheid regime
This week, the 30th anniversary of Black Wednesday, we remember the role of the courageous journalists, newspapers, anti-apartheid organisations and activists targeted by the apartheid regime in 1977.
They sacrificed their freedom in their quest to inform the public about the realities of our country then; and in the struggle for democracy.
On October 19, 1977, The World and the Weekend World newspapers were banned, their editor Mr Percy Qoboza and deputy editor Mr Aggrey Klaaste were detained and 17 anti-apartheid organisations were banned.
Mr Nelson Mandela and his colleagues, then imprisoned on Robben Island, remember how Mr Qoboza was one of the first public figures to campaign for their release from jail.
That year marked a turning point in the South African state’s oppression of the media, and in the next decade many more journalists were detained and banned and newspapers were shut down. As our struggle intensified, so did the regime’s attempt to silence the media.
When he was finally released from prison in February 1990, Mr Mandela paid tribute to the press, both local and international, for keeping the world informed of his plight and that of his colleagues.
The release of Mr Mandela and other political prisoners, the unbanning of political organisations and the return of exiles after 1990 led to democracy in our country and the adoption of a Constitution which enshrines press freedom.
Mr Mandela has often paid tribute to journalists. At the closing session of the ANC’s National Conference in December 1997, he said: “Instrumental in keeping us in touch and informed, in the dissemination of both the good news and the bad, the sensational and the mundane, has been the media. I wish to pay tribute on this occasion to their unflinching, and often ill-appreciated, commitment to their task and their contribution to a more informed and hence a better world.”
We at the Nelson Mandela Foundation would like to use this opportunity to honour all our journalists who have contributed to the struggle for freedom, and all our media who continue to contribute to the making of democracy.