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banning
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What does "banning" mean in South African law?
In South African law, "banning" was an administrative action used to suppress opposition to apartheid. This involved outlawing publications, organizations, or assemblies, and placing severe restrictions on individuals' freedoms of travel, association, and speech.
Publications could be banned if deemed "undesirable" for reasons including obscenity, moral harmfulness, or being prejudicial to the state's safety or general welfare. Organizations and individuals could be banned if considered communist, terrorist, or a threat to security and public order. Banned individuals faced restrictions such as house arrest, limitations on meetings, and prohibitions on public speaking or writing, effectively rendering them public nonentities. The government lifted many of these bans in 1990.
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Why were banning orders used in South Africa?
In South Africa, banning orders were administrative actions used to suppress opposition to the government's policy of apartheid. These orders could outlaw publications, organizations, and assemblies, and severely restrict individuals' freedoms of travel, association, and speech.
The power to ban publications was granted under the Publications and Entertainments Act of 1963, allowing for the suppression of anything deemed "undesirable" for various reasons, including obscenity or being prejudicial to the state's safety. Organizations and individuals could be banned under laws like the Suppression of Communism Act of 1950 and later the Internal Security Act of 1982. Banned individuals faced extensive restrictions, effectively rendering them public nonentities. These measures were a significant tool in the government's efforts to silence dissent from 1950 to 1990.
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Who could be affected by a banning order in South Africa?
In South Africa, a banning order could affect publications, organizations, and individuals. Publications deemed "undesirable" for reasons including obscenity, moral harm, or prejudice to the state's safety and order could be outlawed. Organizations promoting or aiding communism, or likely to cause disturbances, could also be banned.
Individuals could be banned if deemed a threat to security or public order. This could lead to severe restrictions on their freedom of travel, association, and speech, including confinement to home, prohibition from meeting others, and inability to be quoted in publications. These measures were a significant tool used to suppress opposition to apartheid.
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How did banning orders restrict a person's daily life?
In South Africa, banning orders severely restricted individuals' daily lives as a tool to suppress opposition to apartheid. Those affected were prohibited from traveling freely, associating with others, and expressing themselves through speech or writing. A banned person could be confined to their home, forbidden from meeting more than one person at a time (excluding family), and forced to resign from any official positions. They were also barred from public speaking and writing for publications, and crucially, could not be quoted, effectively rendering them a public nonentity. These measures aimed to isolate and silence dissenters, making them invisible in public life.
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How were banning orders used during apartheid in South Africa?
During apartheid in South Africa, banning orders were a significant administrative tool used by the government to suppress opposition. These orders could outlaw publications deemed "undesirable" for various reasons, including obscenity or being prejudicial to the state's safety and order.
Furthermore, organizations and individuals could be banned under laws like the Suppression of Communism Act. This allowed the minister of law and order to ban groups promoting communism or causing disturbances. Individuals could face severe restrictions, including confinement to their homes, prohibition from meetings, and being barred from public speaking or writing. This effectively rendered banned individuals public nonentities, with over 2,000 people subjected to such orders between 1950 and 1990.
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What impact did banning orders have on the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa?
Banning orders were a significant tool used by the South African government to suppress opposition to apartheid. These orders could outlaw publications, organizations, and assemblies, and severely restrict individuals' freedom of travel, association, and speech. Organizations like the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) were banned in 1960. Individuals could be confined to their homes, prohibited from meeting others, and barred from public speaking or writing, effectively rendering them public nonentities. Over 2,000 people were banned between 1950 and 1990, though bans were lifted on many activists and groups in 1990.
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banning, in South Africa, an administrative action by which publications, organizations, or assemblies could be outlawed and suppressed and individual persons could be placed under severe restrictions of their freedom of travel, association, and speech. Banning was an important tool in the South African government’s suppression of those opposed to its policy of apartheid.
The power to ban publications lay with the minister of the interior under the Publications and Entertainments Act of 1963. Under the act a publication could be banned if it was found to be “undesirable” for any of many reasons, including obscenity, moral harmfulness, blasphemy, causing harm to relations between sections of the population, or being prejudicial to the safety, general welfare, peace, or order of the state. Thousands of books, newspapers, and other publications were banned in South Africa from 1950 to 1990.
The banning of organizations or of individuals was authorized by the Suppression of Communism Act of 1950 (although precedents existed in the amended Riotous Assembly Act of 1929), with many subsequent amendments; these laws were superseded by the Internal Security Act of 1982, which retained nearly all their provisions. Under the older laws the minister of law and order could ban an organization found to be promoting or aiding the objects of communism or to be likely to promote such objects. The definitions of communism and of the objects of communism were very broad and included any activity allegedly promoting disturbances or disorder; promoting industrial, social, political, or economic change in South Africa; and encouraging hostility between whites and nonwhites so as to promote change or revolution. The power to label an organization or individual as communist or revolutionary rested with the minister. The main organizations banned under these laws were the Communist Party of South Africa (banned 1950) and the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan-Africanist Congress (both banned in 1960).
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The banning of individuals in South Africa was a practice virtually unique among nations with legal systems derived from Roman or common-law traditions. At the order of the minister, a person deemed a communist, a terrorist, a member of a banned organization, or otherwise a threat to the security and public order of the state could be confined to his home or immediate surroundings, prohibited from meeting with more than one person at a time (other than his family), forced to resign any offices in any organization, prohibited from speaking publicly or writing for any publication, and barred from certain areas, buildings, and institutions, such as law courts, schools, and newspaper offices. Moreover, the banned person could not be quoted in any publication. The effect was to render the banned person a public nonentity. Opponents of the apartheid regime could be banned on the whim of a minister or even a local police officer and be deprived of any legal safeguards in the event of their disappearance or death. From 1950 to 1990 more than 2,000 people were banned in South Africa, such as ANC leader Albert Luthuli, who was banned and confined to his home for lengthy periods of time in the 1950s.
On Feb. 2, 1990, the South African government lifted its ban on the ANC and many other opposition groups, as well as on a large number of individual antiapartheid activists.