Jailed South African Garners Nieman Prize

The Nieman Foundation has awarded the 1987 Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism to a jailed South African newspaper editor.

Zwelakhe Sisulu, 37, editor of the Johannesburg-based New Nation, was selected Wednesday by a vote of the 20 members of the Nieman Fellow Class of 1987.

The award, named in honor of former Nieman curator Louis M. Lyons, recognized Sisulu's courage and dedication in providing South African blacks with an alternative voice amid efforts by the South African government to stifle a dissenting press.

Sisulu has been detained since Dec. 12, 1986 under South African emergency regulations.

"As far as I can tell, Mr. Sisulu's only 'crime' has been to speak his mind," said Mike Pride, editor of the Concord, N.H. Monitor, who with other American and South African journalists nominated Sisulu for the award.

The South African Catholic Bishops' Conference sponsors the weekly tabloid which Sisulu founded in 1985.

Last summer Sisulu was detained for several weeks only to be released and detained again in December. He served several months in detention in the late 70's and was "banned" between 1981 and 1983.

Albert L. May, chairman of the Nieman awards committee said that "Zwelakhe Sisulu is an activist and a leader in a struggle. His weapons are ideas and the printed word against an opponent who answers with force."

Sisulu, a black journalist, was a founding president of the country's black journalists trade union and a reporter and editor for several daily newspapers in South Africa.

Sisulu is the third South African journalist to win the Lyons award in the last five years, May noted.

The award, which carries a $1,000 honorarium, will be presented this fall.