During the period preceding the 2 November white referendum, security police on various occasions interrogated UDF members and supporters, and UDF offices were raided.
- Six members, including the regional secretary of the UDF, Trevor MANUEL, were held for questioning by police for four hours after a meeting and demonstration in Cape Town organised by the UDF to protest against police atrocities in the Ciskei bantustan. Placards were also confiscated.
- The UDF publicity secretary, Patrick LEKOTA, was taken from his home in Durban and questioned at police headquarters for two hours before being released.
- In the week before the referendum UDF offices in Krugersdorp in the Transvaal were raided by police, supporters and members held for questioning and four thousand UDF newsletters confiscated. In the same week police from the Narcotic Squad and the Publications Control Board raided the organisation's offices in Johannesburg and confiscated six thousand newsletters, evidently to ascertain whether the material was a 'desirable publication'. The UDF asked its lawyers to try to recover all confiscated copies of the newsletter.
On a previous occasion in August police seized 40,000 copies of a UDF newsletter, which were later returned after threat of legal action.
- Police harassment of the Border branch of the United Democratic Front continued with the detention of a number of officials both before and after its official launch. On 28 September Ciskei bantustan police detained Steve TSHWETE, a member of the region's interim committee. Tshwete, a teacher and general secretary of the Border Rugby Union, served a 15 year sentence for ANC activities.
At the beginning of November three members of the branch, including the secretary, were detained by South African Police and handed over to the bantustan authorities. Sabela NZOTA, his brother Mpumzi NZOTA, and Sandla MTINSILANE were originally held in Queenstown. There have been a number of other occasions during 1983 in which people described as 'Ciskei citizens' have been detained outside the bantustan boundaries and handed over with no formal extradition proceedings in spite of the so-called 'independence' of the Ciskei.
- On 30 October bantustan police detained Rev. Smangaliso MKHATSHWA, general secretary of the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference, during a visit to Fort Hare University to speak at a prayer service. The leader of the University's Catholic Students Organisation was held with him but later released. Fr. Mkhatshwa has addressed a number of meetings since a banning order on him was not renewed in July. He is a patron of the United Democratic Front.
