The new regulations consolidated and extended earlier emergency provisions. They also negated a Natal Supreme Court ruling in April which invalidated key clauses affecting the media in the December 1986 regulations. The retention of these powers came in the context of government threats against the press, and action against journalists through detentions, arrests and trials.
In May the Home Affairs Minister told what he termed the 'revolution-serving' press in South Africa that their 'incitement to unrest' would 'no longer be tolerated'. He also informed foreign journalists that he would not hesitate to act against them if they failed to comply with the emergency regulations.
The new regulations relating to the media, like the previous ones, place comprehensive restrictions on access to events and sources of information, and on the reporting of news and its publication. They help conceal the regime's repressive actions and inhibit mobilisation of resistance by outlawing a wide range of statements as 'subversive'.
Since 21 May the Public Relations Division of the South African Police has been the only official source of information on 'unrest' after the transfer of responsibility from the state-run Bureau of Information.
Under the emergency regulations no journalist can be present at the scene of any 'unrest' or any action by the 'security' forces without prior permission from the police. The trial of two American Broadcasting Corporation newsmen, Henry BAUTISTA and Willem PRETORIUS, for filming 'unrest' and 'security action' at the University of the Western Cape on 30 April was due to commence on 10 August.
Newspaper companies and journalists risk prosecution under the Police Act of 1958 by publishing articles on police action, since any slight factual inaccuracy can lead to conviction. An agreement between the police and the Newspaper Press Union provides that there should be no prosecutions as long as police comment on the events is published. However, Jo-Ann BEKKER - formerly a reporter with the Eastern Province Herald - and the owners of the newspaper were convicted in Port Elizabeth on 19 June of falsely reporting on an incident in February when police fired teargas at a crowd outside a church in a Cradock township. The court found a statement in the report to be untrue because it claimed the police had fired a teargas canister into the church, even though the court accepted that 'teargas entered the buildings quite extensively'.
The trial under the same Police Act of Tony WEAVER, a Cape Times deputy news editor, was still continuing in July. In the course of a BBC interview, he quoted eyewitness accounts of police conduct in Guguletu when seven alleged ANC guerillas were shot in March 1986.
The detention, banning, expulsion and harassment of journalists acts as an effective constraint on the reporting of news. Five journalists were in detention on 10 July, three of whom had been held for over a year. Four of them were being held under emergency regulations: Zwelakhe SISULU, New Nation (206 days), Mxolisi Jackson FUZILE and Phila NGQUMBA, Veritas News Agency (both 389 days), and Brian SOKUTU, freelance journalist (386 days). Rehana ROUSSOUW (23), a reporter for the Cape Argus, was detained for questioning under Section 29 of the Internal Security Act on 15 June.
Three journalists were banned on 16 May from entering Grahamstown's black townships for three months. Ten foreign journalists were refused new or renewed visas in the eleven months up to May.
Police questioned eleven South African and foreign journalists after the car bomb explosions in Johannesburg on 20 May and five after a Cosatu May Day rally in Port Elizabeth. Three journalists assigned to cover the Ermelo mine disaster in April were arrested and charged with common-law offences. The home of a Star photographer was surrounded and searched at dawn by about 25 Security Policemen and soldiers on 18 June.
