Three Weekly Mail journalists, coÂ-editor Anton Harber, and former Weekly Mail writers Jo-Ann Bekker and Franz Krüger, have been charged under the Emergency censorship regulations. And the editor of the Sowetan, Aggrey Klaaste, has been charged under the Internal Security Act for quoting a ”listed” person. The Weekly Mail journalists are all accused of contravening the ban on reporting the circumstances of, or treatment of, detainees. The charges relate to articles that appeared in the paper more than two years ago.
Harber and Bekker have been charged for an article that appeared on February 20 1987, titled ”Detainee barred from seeing psychologist”. Harber and Krüger have been charged for an article that appeared in June of the same year, titled ”Doctor calls for probe into hunger strike prisÂon”. The charges carry a maximum peÂnalty of 10 years and/or R20 000. They are due to appear on August 16. Klaaste is due to appear in court on August 9, along with a representative of the Argus Company, which owns the Sowetan. They are accused of quoting Harry Gwala in December 1988.
The former editor of South newspaper, Rashid Seria, appeared in court this week for allegedly contravening Emergency regulations. At issue is an article published in South on May 11 last year: ”It’s 1985 in the schools again”. The state alleges the article contravened Emergency regulations in that it reported on a schools boycott in and around Cape Town, and disclosed details of the extent to which such action was successful. Argument by Seria’s counsel, John Whitehead, that because the 1988 Emergency regulations had expired, the court was not competent to try him, was dismissed by the magistrate, MJC Tolken. The trial was postponed until August 28 for plea.
This article originally appeared in the Weekly Mail.
