Gwen Lister

Gwen Lister (born 5 December 1953 in East London, South Africa) is a Namibian journalist, publisher, apartheid opponent and press freedom activist.

Early life

Growing up under the apartheid system, she resolved to fight it as an adult, and concluded that Namibia would be a more effective place to do so than South Africa. She attended University of Cape Town in 1975, receiving a bachelor's degree. After graduation, she went to work as a journalist at Namibia's Windhoek Advertiser as a political correspondent. She later left the paper after interference in her reporting by her editors.

Independent journalism

She and fellow journalist Hannes Smith began the independent weekly Windhoek Observer in 1978. As political editor, Lister wanted to give SWAPO, Namibia's liberation movement, "a 'human face', showing the people, including whites, that they were not the 'terrorists' and 'communists' and the 'black threat' that the colonial regime made them out to be through their blanket propaganda." She also criticised South Africa's apartheid practices in Namibia, drawing the government's anger. The Observer was officially banned in May 1984 after Lister travelled to Zambia to report on Namibian independence talks. Though the ban was lifted after an appeal to Pretoria's Publications Appeal Board, Observer management demoted her for having brought it on, triggering Lister's resignation and a walkout of the newspaper's staff.