A new system of official censorship of newspapers and other periodicals was introduced in August 1987 which cannot effectively be challenged in the courts. While key curbs on media reporting under the emergency regulations were upheld in the courts in September, an attempt by the police to refute a press report about police killings of alleged ANC guerrillas failed, after 18 months.
On 28 August 1987 a new system of censorship was established through an amendment to the emergency regulations relating to the media issued on 11 June. Any periodical that 'systematically or regularly' publishes 'subversive propaganda' can either be closed down unconditionally for up to three months or be required to accept pre-publication censorship as an alternative to closure for a similar period. The import of foreign publications of this nature can also be prohibited for up to three months.
A new Directorate of Media Relations was set up in the Home Affairs Ministry with a team of censors to monitor South African and imported periodicals and advise the Minister on any contravention of the media regulations.
Home Affairs Minister Stoffel Botha informed newspaper editors and senior journalists that his judgement about what constituted 'subversive propaganda' would be a subjective one and that the courts would not be allowed to decide whether or not he had made a correct decision. He claimed that the new regulations 'would only involve the unconventional revolution-supportive press'. However, the South African Media Council stated they would make deep inroads into the freedom of the press in South Africa.
A number of publications were under investigation in September and October for publishing 'subversive propaganda'. New Nation, South, Weekly Mail, and City Press were the first to be threatened with closure. Material in these periodicals cited by the Minister included reports of appeals against the death sentence for political prisoners, the ANC's rejection of the proposed National Statutory Council, the treatment of a detainee for psychiatric illness, and an advertisement by the End Conscription Campaign.
On 27 November New Nation was officially warned that, in the Minister's opinion, it was publishing 'subversive propaganda'.
In the Bophuthatswana bantustan President Mangope was reported to have told editors and reporters not to give publicity either to opposition parties or to the ANC in the bantustan elections held in November. Although the ban was unofficial, journalists expressed the fear that anyone disobeying the order would be sacked.
KEY MEDIA CURBS UPHELD In a case brought in June 1987 by the Weekly Mail, and the Release Mandela Campaign to challenge the reimposition of emergency regulations, the Pietermaritzburg Supreme Court ruled on 22 September that the ban on media reporting of protest actions ('unrest') and action by the police and army ('security forces'), as defined in the current emergency regulations, remained in force. Some lesser media restrictions reimposed in the June 1987 regulations were, however, held to be invalid.
Tony Weaver, deputy editor of the Cape Times, was acquitted of charges of false reporting under the Police Act on 17 September. Parow Magistrates' Court found that he had reasonable grounds for his report on the BBC Africa Service on 4 March 1986 that the South African police had shot dead seven alleged ANC guerrillas in cold blood on the previous day. After his acquittal, Weaver sued the Minister of Law and Order for 'wrongful and malicious' prosecution.
