South Africa, April 1 -- Companies and state officials are increasingly abusing protection orders to try to stop journalists and activists from doing their work, cynically accusing them of harassment and invasion of privacy.

As well as the Hans case, the Campaign for Free Expression has recorded these others:

Protection orders were introduced largely to make it easy, quick and cheap for victims of domestic violence to get protection. One can get an interim order without informing the other party and then a date is set to argue a final order, where the subject of the order could be present.

This was expanded in the Protection from Harassment Act, which allowed for such orders when there is no intimate relationship between the parties, m...