South Africa Police Given Most Sweeping Press Controls Yet

The South African government, further tightening its controls on the country’s news media, gave the police authority Thursday to prohibit publication of anything they regard as a threat to security or public order.

The new censorship powers are by far the most sweeping yet assumed by President Pieter W. Botha’s government, going beyond earlier measures that severely restricted the reporting of political violence, “subversive statements” and security force actions--but still allowed some scope for comment.

Under a special presidential decree, the national police commissioner, Gen. Johan Coetzee, is empowered to “issue an order . . . prohibiting any publication, television recording, film recording or sound recording containing any news, comment or advertisement or in connection with any matter” that he specifies.

The new measure is certain to arouse the anger of the government’s opponents from both the left and the right who vehemently criticized earlier press restrictions. Botha will find himself under even sharper attack when Parliament reconvenes in Cape Town today to hear his assessment of the state of the nation and his justification for what could become full political censorship here.

Adriaan Vlok, the minister of law and order, said in a statement issued in Pretoria late Thursday that the government wants to ensure that no material is published that would be favorable to the African National Congress, the main guerrilla organization fighting continued minority rule here, or to other outlawed groups.

“The government is determined that there will be no supportive statements or advertisements for terrorist organizations in any way whatsoever,” Vlok said.

Coetzee immediately issued an order under the new decree to prohibit the publication of advertisements “defending, praising or endeavoring to justify” the policies, programs or projects of outlawed organizations, particularly when they involve “violence or resistance against or of subversion of the state.”

ANC Reporting May Resume

The regulation did not appear, however, to affect news reports, analyses, commentaries and editorials as an earlier order had, angering much of the South African news media, and the press may be able to resume its reporting and comments on ANC activities.

Nevertheless, the scope of the new powers given the police greatly alarmed lawyers specializing in press law here because the police commissioner is now authorized to decide what matters will be subject to censorship or require government permission to publish.

“It’s arguable whether press freedom still exists in South Africa,” lawyer Paul Jenkins commented, adding that the police commissioner had been “elevated to the country’s chief censor.”

Regulations published on Dec. 11, when the government dramatically increased its restrictions on political debate and the news media, prohibit as “subversive statements” any comments or remarks that encourage participation in the country’s civil unrest; resistance to a government official maintaining public order or exercising powers under the state of emergency; support of school boycotts, consumer boycotts, rent strikes or other protests; attendance at prohibited gatherings, and development of alternative government bodies, such as civic associations or “people’s courts.”

Restrictions on Newsmen

Newsmen are forbidden to cover any political disturbances or to report on most aspects of them without government permission, and reports containing unofficial information must be submitted to government censors, under the regulations issued last month. Newsmen are also barred from reporting on security force activities, the treatment of political detainees, on boycotts and other peaceful protests and on restricted or prohibited gatherings.

These regulations are now being challenged in court as exceeding the powers given Botha under legislation authorizing him to declare a state of emergency. Lawyers for the United Democratic Front, a coalition of more than 700 anti-apartheid groups with more than 3 million members, asked the Natal provincial Supreme Court in Pietermaritzburg on Thursday to declare them invalid. The lawyers termed the regulations unreasonable and vague and said they give low-level officials too much power without guidelines to exercise it properly.

Ismail Mahomed, arguing for the United Democratic Front, described the regulations as “clumsy and hopelessly terrifying and oppressive.” Botha was wrong, Mahomed said, in “surrendering to other persons the awesome power to intrude into the daily lives of ordinary citizens” under the state of emergency.

Greater Police Powers

The government’s action late Thursday giving the police commissioner even greater powers of censorship came after a Transvaal provincial Supreme Court justice in Johannesburg had declared invalid a previous order by Coetzee prohibiting the publication of reports or advertisements that would “improve or promote the public image or esteem” of the African National Congress or other outlawed groups.

That regulation also made it a crime, punishable by 10 years in prison, “to comment, to defend, to explain or to justify any action or strategy of such an organization of resistance or subversion of the authority of the state.”

Justice Harold Daniels, ruling on narrow legal grounds, said in Johannesburg that Coetzee had exceeded his authority in making the regulation because it applied to the whole country and not to a specific area, as required by the country’s Public Safety Act and the decree proclaiming the state of emergency.

Coetzee had issued the order on Jan. 8 after more than 20 South African newspapers had published advertisements calling for the legalization of the African National Congress, which was outlawed in 1960 after an upsurge in black protests against the government.

“Let the ANC speak,” the advertisements had declared, accusing the government of “bombarding the people of South Africa with distortions and untruths about the ANC.”

Daniels also questioned the regulations under which the government was increasing its controls on the news media, indicating that they should have been incorporated in the original proclamation of a state of emergency if adopted at all.

“I am of the opinion that the (emergency regulations) were never intended to be used to impose censorship on the media,” Daniels commented in his decision. “The (police) order appears to be inconsistent with the scheme of the emergency regulations.”

Daniels’ decision could affect other aspects of the emergency regulations, and under South African legal practice the ruling, although enforceable only in Transvaal province, would be observed as a precedent elsewhere in the country unless another Supreme Court justice decided a case differently.