Gwen Lister
Gwen Lister, (born 5 December 1953 in East London) is a Namibian journalist, publisher, apartheid opponent and press freedom activist.
After receiving a bachelor’s degree from the University of Cape Town in 1975, she went to work as a journalist at Namibia's Windhoek Advertiser.
In 1978 she co-founded the Namibian weekly Windhoek Observer with Hannes Smith, where as political editor she criticised South Africa's apartheid practices in her homeland. This led to several unsuccessful prosecutions and the 1984 banning of the newspaper. She successfully appealed against the move, but was demoted by the paper's management for damaging the newspaper's reputation, leading to a walkout and the dismissal of several colleagues.
Despite draconian apartheid government efforts to frustrate her, she launched The Namibian, a provocatively named independent paper, in August 1985. The newspaper exposed human rights violations by South Africa's occupying forces. This resulted in more harassment, an advertising boycott by the white business community, and in October 1988, an attack by the Afrikaner vigilante group, the Wit Wolwe in which the newspaper's offices were almost burned down.[1]
A few months earlier, while pregnant, she was detained, and confined to the Windhoek magisterial district. Her passport was confiscated and she was required to report to the police station several times a week.[2] It would later emerge that South Africa's notorious Civil Co-operation Bureau had planned to poison Lister.[3]
Lister helped establish the Media Institute of Southern Africa.[1] She was among International Press Institute's 50 Hero of World Press Freedom laureates in 2000, an award that puts her on par with journalist heavyweights like Rudolf Augstein and Anna Politkovskaya.[1]
In 2004 she received the Courage in Journalism Award from the International Women's Media Foundation.[4]
Personal life
Lister had two children: her son graduated in law at Rhodes University in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape and her daughter in high school. She plays squash in the Namibian Business League.
See also
References
- ^ a b c Laudatory submission for Hero of World Press Freedom Award: Gwen Lister
- ^ The Media Report: 23 January 2003 Gwen Lister: Crusading editor
- ^ ANC Report to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, chapter 4.3.5.7: Usage of poison against opponents
- ^ Laudatory submission for Courage in Journalism Award: [1]