Many of these poets, particularly the anti-apartheid writers, suffered personally in forms ranging from exile, house arrest, detention and torture to the banning of their literature or their right to public speaking. This was because they questioned and opposed apartheid law, as well as raised national and international awareness of the injustices committed in the country during a long period of media censorship, state propaganda, cultural boycott, mass detentions, and the killing of freedom struggle activists as well as ordinary black citizens.