The government continued during the early months of 1986 to try to restrict the dissemination of information, using a variety of laws to prevent foreign and local journalists from operating fully in a number of areas.
Following the lifting of the State of Emergency on 7 March all emergency regulations concerning the media lapsed. However, an agreement remains in force between the Newspaper Press Union and the police, obliging accredited journalists to report to the senior police officer at a scene where the police are active. A police spokesman warned that reporters were obliged to leave areas of unrest if commanded to do so by the police.
In March the government ordered the expulsion from South Africa of three employees of CBS, including the CBS bureau chief, following the showing on United States television of a mass funeral in Alexandra. On the eve of the funeral, the Divisional Police Commissioner for the Witwatersrand had banned the use of audio-visual and television equipment at the scene in terms of emergency regulations. CBS nevertheless managed to obtain footage of the event.
The three CBS employees received orders to leave the country within a week. However, following talks between the Minister of Home Affairs and a CBS delegation from the United States, the expulsion order was cancelled. CBS News issued a statement in which it undertook to ensure as far as possible that material it obtained and used was not 'tainted with illegality'.
On a previous occasion in December last year three CBS employees and three employees of the British agency, World Television News (WTN), were barred for two months from entering the areas of Guguletu, Nyanga, Crossroads and KTC near Cape Town after they had attempted to film there. The orders were brought by the police using powers vested in them under Section 9 of the Black (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act of 1945. A week later, when CBS attempted to appeal, the ban was lifted by the Minister of Law and Order after CBS agreed to withdraw its appeal.
GUGULETU KILLINGS
Following the killing by police of seven alleged guerillas in Guguletu near Cape Town on 3 March, a Cape Times reporter, Chris BATEMAN, was subpoenaed under Section 205 of the Criminal Procedure Act to give the names and addresses of three witnesses whose accounts of the event had been published.
The seven were shot dead by policemen while fleeing after they had been confronted by police on alighting from a van. The Commissioner of Police, General Johan Coetzee, said that the ANC had planned an attack on a police vehicle in Cape Town and that 'certain precautionary measures' had been taken. One of the seven had thrown a grenade and another had opened fire with an automatic weapon.
However, according to the three eyewitnesses, one man was shot in the head and legs while his hands were raised above his head and another shot in the head while lying wounded on the ground.
All three witnesses had asked not to be named, but later agreed to come forward, so that Bateman was able to comply with the order.
JOURNALISTS CHARGED
- Two television cameramen working for WTN, Richard and Patrick LUCEY, were arrested under the Criminal Procedure Act on 17 December during protests by residents in the Moutse district against incorporation into the KwaNdebele bantustan. They were charged with inciting public violence and released on bail. The trial was postponed until 4 February.
- Ebrahim MOOSA (28) of the Cape Times was arrested in January outside a school in Cape Town and charged with contravening an order under the emergency regulations banning all persons except teachers and pupils of a particular school from entering school premises without police consent. Moosa's case was due to resume on 28 February.
- Two photographers arrested outside Alexandra on 18 February were charged with taking pictures in an emergency area. Wendy SCHWEGMANN of Reuters and Bill CAMPBELL of Time magazine were among 20 foreign journalists arrested while covering a visit to the township by a delegation of churchmen.
