Gwen Lister, editor of the weekly newspaper The Namibian, was detained by police on 17 June and held for four days. She was questioned about the source of an article exposing police plans for sweeping new powers, similar to those granted in South Africa under the State of Emergency.
On 10 June a prominent official of the South African-installed Multi-Party Conference (MPC) administration, Andrew Matjila, warned that Pretoria might impose a general State of Emergency to counter school boycotts and worker protests.
In April the South African State President P W Botha granted new powers to the South African Administrator-General in Namibia. He declared that 'suitable steps' needed to be taken against SWAPO and the media which promoted 'subversion'. The MPC administration was instructed by Botha to indicate by early July how they intended to implement these steps.
The MPC assembly discussed a proposal to control SWAPO and other organisations through a registration process which would force organisations to declare that they opposed violence and to disclose their funds. However, the proposal was considered unworkable and it is not known how the MPC responded to Botha's call for firmer action against opponents of the South African occupation of Namibia. Botha made it clear that Pretoria would take its own steps if the MPC response was judged unsatisfactory.
The revelations in The Namibian were based on a secret document drawn up by the police, apparently for submission to the MPC administration. It proposed that the Commissioner of Police be empowered to declare certain areas 'no-go zones' and prohibit freedom of movement inside them; order the closure of 'any business or enterprise'; prohibit meetings; and declare individuals 'affected persons', presumably to restrict their activities. A number of offences would be created, including 'disruption of educational institutions' and 'undermining or discrediting conscription'. Penalties included prison sentences of up to 10 years, or fines of up to R20,000.
The document also proposed that the public should be prevented from taking legal action against police personnel, soldiers and government employees.
Police visited the offices of the The Namibian on 16 June and confiscated the document, but Lister published the gist of its contents the next day, saying that the police had not prohibited her from doing so. She was detained that day under Proclamation AG9 of 1977 which allows for renewable periods of 30 days detention without charge.
Worldwide protests followed her detention. The United Nations Council for Namibia, the legal administering authority for the territory, issued a statement linking Lister's detention to P W Botha's threat against the media and called for her immediate release.
When released on 21 June, Lister said that she had been questioned about the source of the document and threatened with charges, probably under the Protection of Information Act.
In an earlier incident, on 20 May, Lister and a staff member of the newspaper were subpoenaed to give evidence before a military Board of Inquiry at Suiderhof military base near Windhoek. They refused to reveal the source of a leaked document detailing the army's involvement in school para-military cadet training schemes, which formed the basis of an article in The Namibian earlier in the year.
In April the newspaper was reported by both the military and police authorities to the South African Media Council, which oversees the contents of registered publications in South Africa and Namibia. The military authorities accused it of supporting SWAPO, which was described as 'the enemy in the revolutionary onslaught against SWA/Namibia', and of opposing the South West Africa Territory Force and depicting it as engaged in 'inhumane actions against members of the local population'. The Namibian rejected the accusations and called on the Council to reject the complaints or else hold a hearing in Windhoek so that the newspaper could call on local witnesses to substantiate its stories.
