Afrikaans Writer Breytenbach is sentenced

Date: 26 Nov 1975
Updated: 30 Sep 2019

Afrikaans Writer Breytenbach is sentenced

On an illegal trip to South Africa with a false passport, a well-known Afrikaans writer Breyten Breytenbach was betrayed, arrested and sentenced to nine years imprisonment for high treason under the Terrorism Act by the Pretoria Supreme Court. He had pleaded guilty for entering South Africa to start an organisation Atlas or Okhela, a resistance group fighting apartheid in exile and was intended to be the White wing of the banned African National Congress (ANC). He remained a political prisoner until his release in December 1982 amid strong international intervention.

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01Kalley, J. A. et al (1999). Southern African Political History: A Chronology of Key Political Events from Independence to Mid-1997, Greenwood: London, p. 412.

Last updated · 30 Sep 2019

Cite this entry

South African History Online. (2011, March 16). Afrikaans Writer Breytenbach is sentenced. South African History Online. https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012249

South African History Online (2011) 'Afrikaans Writer Breytenbach is sentenced', South African History Online, 16 March. Available at: https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012249 (Accessed: 1 October 2026).

South African History Online, Afrikaans Writer Breytenbach is sentenced [website], https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012249, (accessed 1 October 2026).

"Afrikaans Writer Breytenbach is sentenced." South African History Online, 16 Mar. 2011, https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012249. Accessed 1 Oct. 2026.

South African History Online. "Afrikaans Writer Breytenbach is sentenced." South African History Online. March 16, 2011. https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012249.