Gwen Lister

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Gwen Lister (born December 5, 1953 in East London , South Africa ) is a Namibian journalist , publisher , anti-apartheid and activist for freedom of the press . She is the founder and until 2011 editor-in-chief of the Namibian daily newspaper The Namibian and is co-founder of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA).

Life

education

After graduating from the University of Cape Town , Lister started her journalistic career with the Windhoek Advertiser in 1975 . In 1978 she founded the Windhoek Observer with the publisher of the advertiser , Hannes Smith . As the observer's political editor , Lister regularly spoke out against South Africa's apartheid policy in Namibia. For this she was persecuted by the authorities and repeatedly tried on false accusations. Her home was searched multiple times and her mail was monitored.

Establishment of the Namibian until the end of the South African occupation

In 1984 the Windhoek Observer was banned by the Pretoria Media Commission , mainly because of Lister's political reporting. She successfully objected to the ban, but was demoted to the status of ordinary journalist by the Observer's management during the proceedings for damage to her reputation. Her colleagues went on strike because of this decision and were fired. Lister quit shortly afterwards and founded The Namibian in 1985 .

The Namibian was seen as a left-wing newspaper close to the African independence movements and SWAPO . The name was both a provocation and a program, as a state of Namibia (which only gained independence five years later) was denied the right to exist by the administrative power, South Africa, which was no longer accepted under international law. Lister was such a thorn in the side of the apartheid government that in the 1980s the South African military- intelligence unit, the Civil Cooperation Bureau, hired an assassin to contaminate her cosmetics with a slow-acting poison.

In 1988, Gwen Lister, who was four months pregnant at the time, was arrested for disclosing a confidential document, but released conditionally after a few days. In the same year, the Namibian offices were subjected to a fire and tear gas attack. The "Wit Wolwe" ( Afrikaans for: White Wolves), a right-wing extremist and racist terrorist organization, confessed to the attack.

Since Namibia's independence

In 1990 Namibia became independent . Since then Lister has shaped the new role of the Namibian as an observer and critic of the government , especially the SWAPO party, which is now ruling with an absolute majority. After several verbal threats to her newspaper, this led to a government boycott of advertising in 2001, which a year later was expanded to include a ban on buying editions of the Namibian with public money. Both bans are still in force today, despite its role as the Namibian daily newspaper with the highest circulation.

In March 2011 she resigned as editor-in-chief of the Namibian.

Awards and honors

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Nelson Mandela Center of Memory: The National Party, Apartheid and the Anatomy of Repression in South Africa, 1948-1994 . on www.nelsonmandela.org (English)
  2. ↑ Amupadhi to take over from Lister . In: The Namibian . March 2, 2011. Archived from the original on August 12, 2012. Retrieved on August 12, 2012.
  3. ↑ IPI laudation: Gwen Lister ( Memento from May 31, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ laudation of the IWMF: https://web.archive.org/web/20110809111446/http://www.iwmf.org/archive/articletype/articleview/articleid/543/gwen-lister-namibia.aspx
personal data
SURNAME Lister, Gwen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Namibian journalist
DATE OF BIRTH 5th December 1953
PLACE OF BIRTH East London , South Africa