Stephen Bantu Biko was the first president of South African Student Organisation (SASO), a black student’s organization that was focused on the resistance against and liberation from apartheid. In 1973 he was banned by apartheid government. Under the ban, he was restricted to his hometown King William’s Town and could not speak to the public or talk with media representatives. Biko started to work undercover and created the Zimele Trust Fund to aid political prisoners and families. On 18 August 1977, he was arrested on his way home from a political meeting and detained in Port Elizabeth under the Terrorism Act. This arrest was one of several each on different charges, including various allegations that he had broken his banning orders and a charge of obstructing the course of justice by persuading witnesses in a political trial to change their evidence. Biko was thirty years old and healthy when he was arrested. He was first taken to Port Elizabeth prison and on 11 September was transferred to Pretoria where he died in hospital after assaults in police custody. The police officers who had held Biko were questioned but none of them confirmed his cause of death. Two decades after his death 1997, five former officers confessed to killing Biko .They applied for amnesty from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission but the application was denied. Biko was buried on 25 September 1977 in the Ginsberg cemetery outside King William’s Town.
18 August 1977
Steven Biko is arrested.

Stephen Bantu Biko
- Updated
- 18 Aug 2026

Stephen Bantu Biko
How we know this
- 01Buffalo City Metro, ‘King William's Town's hero: Steve Biko 1946 ”“ 1977’, from Buffalo City Metro, [online], Available at www.buffalocity.gov.za [Accessed: 30 July 2014]
- 02The Biography.com, ‘Steve Biko Biography Activist (1946”“1977)’, from Biography.com, [online], Available at www.biography.com [Accessed: 30 July 2014]
- 03South African History Online, ‘Stephen Bantu Biko’, from SAHO, [online],Available at www.sahistory.org.za [Accessed: 30 July 2014]
Last updated · 18 Aug 2026
South African History Online. (2014, August 15). Steven Biko is arrested.. South African History Online. https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0098123
South African History Online (2014) 'Steven Biko is arrested.', South African History Online, 15 August. Available at: https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0098123 (Accessed: 12 October 2026).
South African History Online, Steven Biko is arrested. [website], https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0098123, (accessed 12 October 2026).
"Steven Biko is arrested.." South African History Online, 15 Aug. 2014, https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0098123. Accessed 12 Oct. 2026.
South African History Online. "Steven Biko is arrested.." South African History Online. August 15, 2014. https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0098123.
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