List of people subject to banning orders under apartheid

This is a selection of people subject to a "banning order" by the apartheid-era South African government. Banning was a repressive and extrajudicial measure^[1] used by the South African apartheid regime (1948–1994) against its political opponents.^[2] The legislative authority for banning orders was firstly the Suppression of Communism Act, 1950,^[3] which defined virtually all opposition to the ruling National Party as communism. This was superseded by the Internal Security Act, 1982. The regime ceased to deploy bannings and lifted all remaining banning orders in 1990, in the run-up to the advent of democracy in South Africa in 1994.^[2][4]

A banning order entailed restrictions on where the banned person could live and who they could have contact with, required that they report weekly to a police station, and proscribed them from travelling outside a specific magisterial district. The banned person was prohibited from attending meetings of any kind, speaking in public, or publishing or distributing any written material. It proscribed broadcasters and the press from broadcasting, publishing or reporting the banned person's words. It thus mixed elements of exile, suppression orders and censorship. The prohibition on attending meetings meant that the banned person could not be with more than one other person at a time. The banned person was forbidden all contact with other banned persons and was forbidden to engage in any political activity. The penalty for violating a banning order was up to five years in prison.