‘Blacks treated more severely’: What does it mean to live under the Publications Act and the Internal Security Act? For Blacks it means that as well as being denied a vote, they also lose their voice whenever they find it

Abstract

A recent report on the way censorship operates in South Africa reveals that the Black community ‘is treated more severely than other groups in the realm of freedom of expression’. Compiled by Gilbert Marcus of the Centre for Applied Legal Studies at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, the 10,000-word report shows how the authorities use existing legislation (the Publications Act and the Internal Security Act) to stifle expression and conduct they disapprove of. ‘One is driven to the conclusion,’ writes Gilbert Marcus, ‘that both statutes are utilised as devices to preserve the status quo and to suppress opposition. Newspapers and other publications which serve the Black community are only allowed to operate within narrowly circumscribed limits. When opposition is pitched at the level that it may become effective, it is suppressed. The effective articulation of opposition is often branded as the irresponsible abuse of freedom of expression.’ The author warns that the real danger of suppressing free speech is to be found in the ‘possibility that other means of expression will be resorted to’. The stifling of peaceful channels of protest makes it much more likely that more violent means will be resorted to. The report was written in August 1984 and has been slightly abbreviated.