Country South Africa Municipality City of Johannesburg Postal code (street) 2193 | Province Gauteng Main Place Johannesburg | |
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Forest Town, as the name implies, is a leafy suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa. It lies between the busy thoroughfares of Jan Smuts Avenue and Oxford Road, and is bordered to one side by the Johannesburg Zoo.
Map of Forest Town, Johannesburg, 2193, South Africa
Forest Town is most well known as the scene of a high profile police raid on a gay party in 1966, which triggered a moral panic and led to the Apartheid government passing the Immorality Amendment Bill of 1967. The Bill criminalised all sexual activity between men, as well as extending the legislation to include lesbians. Following South Africa's first multiracial elections in 1994, all discriminatory legislation was repealed.
In 2005, the Forest Town home of Jacob Zuma, the former deputy president of South Africa, was raided by the Scorpions in order to obtain documents for his corruption trial. Jacob Zuma is now the president of South Africa.