A ban in April on encouraging protests calling for the release of detainees was one of several police actions aimed at closing legal loop-holes in the emergency regulations. They were responses to organised campaigns which had survived earlier attempts to suppress information or prevent mobilisation.
The new orders issued on 10 April made it an offence - punishable by ten years' imprisonment or a R20,000 fine - to encourage people to participate 'in any campaign, project or action' aimed at securing the release of emergency detainees by the wearing of T-shirts or displaying of car stickers with messages calling for the release of detainees, the organising of meetings, the signing of petitions or coupons, or the sending of telegrams or letters to the government.
The police had failed a month earlier to prevent newspapers publishing advertisements by the DPSC calling for the countrywide observance of a National Detainees Day on 12 March. When the first advertisement appeared on 8 March, the police informed editors that the publication of similar advertisements would contravene the emergency regulations and that they would seize any newspapers containing them. However, several newspapers published the advertisement with a call to 'Release all detainees' deleted. The Rand Supreme Court granted an injunction restraining the police from preventing publication - the court ruled that the amended advertisement did not contravene the regulations.
The National Detainees Day was widely observed. In Cape Town 4,000 people attended meetings at the universities of Cape Town and the Western Cape. About 1,500 people attended a meeting in Johannesburg organised by the DPSC.
Information Controls In January the government gave the Commissioner of the South African Police the most wide-ranging powers of control of information yet introduced under the present State of Emergency. New emergency regulations were issued on 29 January in response to a partially successful legal challenge by two major newspaper groups after editors received police orders severely limiting reporting on banned organisations. The orders had been issued shortly after the publication in a number of newspapers of an advertisement calling for the unbanning of the ANC.
South African Associated Newspapers and the Argus Group argued in their application to the Rand Supreme Court that the Commissioner had exceeded his powers under the emergency regulations and that the restrictions he had imposed were unjust, unreasonable and vague.
On 29 January the court set aside one of the orders, which prohibited advertisements supporting organisations banned under the Internal Security Act, ruling that the Commissioner's powers did not extend to the whole country. However, it upheld a second order which declared 'subversive' any statement likely to promote support for a banned organisation.
Hours later the regime amended the emergency regulations, empowering the Commissioner to issue an order prohibiting the publication or recording in any way of 'any news, comment or advertisement on or in connection with any matter' he defined as 'subversive'. His control had previously been confined to any statement threatening public safety or delaying the ending of the Emergency.
The amended regulations also included an expanded definition of a 'subversive statement' to include any statement encouraging people to participate in, join, or to support an unlawful organisation or take part in its campaigns of violence or resistance against the State. Further amendments were made to the previous regulations issued in December so that all clauses relating to news material also applied to advertisements.
The Commissioner then withdrew the earlier orders and issued a new one restricting publication of advertisements in connection with unlawful organisations, which defended or tried to justify their campaigns, actions or policies of violence or resistance to the State.
In February the government gave notice of its intention to appeal against the court ruling. The United Democratic Front and the Release Mandela Campaign, whose legal application against the emergency regulations as amended on 11 December was postponed until April, announced that they would also challenge the new amendments.
