Four black newspapers, Post Transvaal, Saturday Post, Sunday Post and the Sowetan, were banned, technically on the same day that the eight week strike of black journalists ends. Six days later, in the Rand Supreme Court, Justice Coetzee, refused to lift the banning order on the four aforementioned newspapers. In addition to that, the security police served the president and vice-president of the Black journalists' trade union Media Workers of South Africa with three-year banning orders. A storm of protest erupted, even from the strongly pro-government Afrikaans press.
eventREF E-0094434Revised
23 December 1980
Four black newspapers are banned by the SA government
- Updated
- 21 Dec 2020
How we know this
- 01O’Malley P. ‘1980’, from Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory and Dialog, [online], available at www.nelsonmandela.org.za [Accessed: 24 October 2012]
- 02South African History Online, ‘Justice Coetzee refuses to lift banishment on four Black newspapers’, [online], available at www.sahistory.org.za [Accessed: 25 October 2012]
Last updated · 21 Dec 2020
South African History Online. (2012, December 19). Four black newspapers are banned by the SA government. South African History Online. https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0094434
South African History Online (2012) 'Four black newspapers are banned by the SA government', South African History Online, 19 December. Available at: https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0094434 (Accessed: 8 November 2026).
South African History Online, Four black newspapers are banned by the SA government [website], https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0094434, (accessed 8 November 2026).
"Four black newspapers are banned by the SA government." South African History Online, 19 Dec. 2012, https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0094434. Accessed 8 Nov. 2026.
South African History Online. "Four black newspapers are banned by the SA government." South African History Online. December 19, 2012. https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0094434.
Also on 23 December
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- 1985Amanzimtoti blast kills five
- 2002Tatamkhulu Afrika South African poet, writer and struggle activist dies
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