Banning order

A banning order was

an administrative tool utilized by the South African government to outlaw and suppress publications, organizations, or assemblies, or restrict an individual person’s freedom of travel, association, and speech. Besides wide use of the familiar censorship practice of banning publications, performances and films (i.e. disallowing sales, performance or showing of such material in a particular country) by the South African Censorship Board, and the banning of organizations and political parties, another pervasive form of control and suppression of opposition and dissidence was exercised by the issuing of so-called “banning orders” on individuals. During the apartheid years, especially in the later, more violent years of the armed struggle, banning orders (with varying conditions) were imposed on numerous individuals who were perceived as a threat to the state, and this could mean anything from prohibition from attending meetings, to limitation to a certain regional area or house arrest.