Editors Revel as Press Curbs Are Lifted : Media: A sense of freedom sweeps through South Africa’s newsrooms after De Klerk’s speech.

There was a sense of liberation among newspaper editors Friday after President Frederik W. de Klerk lifted some emergency curbs on the media.

“Now I can spend time in journalism instead of in court,” said Max de Preez, editor of the outspoken Afrikaans-language Vrye Weekblad (Free Weekly).

Harvey Tyson, editor of South Africa’s biggest daily, The Star, said: “Within minutes of Mr. De Klerk’s announcement, we removed our front-page reminder to readers that The Star is being produced under the severest restrictions. . . . “

“We substituted a panel under the heading ‘De-Censored,’ telling readers that we no longer had to resort to devices, some of them probably illegal, to bring them the news.”

In his speech to Parliament Friday, De Klerk said media regulations imposed under the state of emergency in 1986 and tightened in June, 1988, would be abolished.

The regulations prevented journalists from reporting political unrest, plans for strikes, consumer boycotts and protest meetings.

They also prevented officials of anti-apartheid groups, restricted under the emergency, from being quoted. The African National Congress and at least 35 other organizations have now been unfettered.

Newspapers disobeying the rules could be suspended. They faced possible confiscation of whole editions, while editors risked prosecution and prison.

De Klerk said he would maintain restrictions on television and photographic coverage of unrest.

Pretoria blamed international television coverage of riots in black townships between 1984 and 1986 for provoking violence and undermining foreign confidence in South Africa’s economy.

Du Preez, whose paper reported allegations that police operated right-wing death squads, is scheduled to appear in court Feb. 12 under the media regulations, charged with making subversive statements about military conscription.

“It looks like my chances are better now,” he said.

Several editors said that a free press is essential at a time of political reform. “It is in these circumstances even more important that there should be a free flow of information so that the public is properly informed of the policies, positions and principles of the various political groupings and actors,” said Jan Steyn, chairman of the Media Council, an independent watchdog body.

However, the media are far from unrestricted. Many people banned under the Internal Security Act, such as as exiled Communist Party chief Joe Slovo, still may not be quoted.

There are more than 50 laws on the books in South Africa curtailing freedom of the press.