Word: township
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...seem possible that life could get more frustrating. Since early November, photographers and television crews have been barred by the government of State President P.W. Botha from recording any public disturbances or police actions in declared emergency areas. Print journalists have been required to have police escorts in turbulent townships. Despite the restraints, reporters have managed at times to slip undetected into restricted areas. But when racial violence erupted last week in Alexandra, a black township near Johannesburg, the police and army clamped down on both print and broadcast journalists with new ferocity...
Even as local officers issued polite messages to news organizations requesting that "journalists please refrain from entering Alexandra township," police and army forces were throwing up an impenetrable cordon around Alexandra. Several journalists climbed to hills overlooking the township to monitor and film the violence. The ruse, however, only provoked the authorities, who quickly issued new regulations banning reporters and photographers not only from Alexandra but from all surrounding areas...
Cameras were forbidden "within telephoto range" of the township, and correspondents were barred from taking notes within the same radius. To enforce the restrictions, police were dispatched to round up uncooperative members of the press. In all, more than 20 journalists were arrested and then released. Many had cameras and film confiscated. Others, including a TIME correspondent and photographer, were threatened with further investigation and prosecution...
...easy access to the story. Officials did not want Alexandra swarming with journalists who would upset the picture of relative calm that for no apparent reason other than simple exhaustion on the part of protesters, seems to have settled over South Africa in recent weeks. Moreover, the mile-square township is hemmed in on three sides by light industrial complexes and on the fourth by white suburbs. The outbreak of violence so close to white communities, which have remained largely untouched by 17 months of racial unrest, prompted the unusually heavy deployments of security forces that officials did not want...
...unrest in the traditionally quiet township began Saturday, Feb. 15, as thousands of mourners were returning from the funerals of two local blacks. It is uncertain how the disturbances began, but within moments blacks were hurling stones at police, who counterattacked with tear-gas canisters. The violence quickly escalated. By Monday the turbulence had spread to the outskirts of the township, where black youths peppered local factories with Molotov cocktails...