Official moves to silence journalists critical of South Africa's illegal occupation of Namibia were stepped up at the close of 1984 with the arrest of Gwen Lister, former political correspondent of the Windhoek Observer, and the BBC correspondent for Namibia. Lister was arrested on 14 December on charges under the Official Secrets Act and Post Office Act. She was released three days later on R500 bail, after surrendering her travel documents. After appearing in the Windhoek Magistrate's Court the following day, a trial date was set for 31 January. She was required to report to Windhoek Police twice a week, and prohibited from leaving the Windhoek district without security police permission.
The arrest took place in connection with a letter addressed to the Postmaster General in Windhoek by the security police in Pretoria, but delivered to Lister's postbox. The letter contained instructions to intercept all mail addressed to Lister, and was marked 'top secret'. It stated that 'in the interests of national security', Lister's mail should be intercepted because she 'liaises regularly with prominent figures in the SWAPO leadership'. The fact that the letter arrived at Lister's post box was described as a 'mammoth security bungle' by the media.
Charges were also being investigated against newspapers who published the contents of the letter and three Windhoek-based correspondents for South African newspaper groups were questioned by the security police. Earlier, the head of the security police in Namibia had telephoned the editor of the Windhoek Advertiser warning him that reporting on the incident could be a contravention of the Official Secrets Act. Consequently, the paper published a heavily censored version of the report.
At the magistrate's court hearing, four journalists and a businessman were named as state witnesses, and Lister was instructed 'not to interfere with any of the state witnesses'. They are Peter Honey of the Argus Foreign Service Bureau, Brian Jones and Jean Sutherland of the Windhoek Advertiser, Dirk Heinrich of the Allgemeine Zeitung and Alan Liebenberg.
The case provoked strong protests in South Africa and elsewhere. At the hearing on 31 January, all charges were dropped.
