Borders for deportation to Ireland.
The Act was passed for an initial period of six months without a single Labour MP-'left' or otherwise-voting against. It is now due for renewal; but apparently Roy Jenkins can and will extend it for anther six months without any vote, simply by laying an executive order before Parliament.
This means that the forces of the State will continue to have a field day in their attempts to intimidate the Irish community as a whole and weaken the working class movement by stirring up anti-Irish feeling in its ranks. The use of the Act in this way has already been well documented, particularly in the recent 'Report on the First Four Months Operation of the Act' by the National Concil for Civil Liberties.
THREE PARTS The Act is divided into three parts. It consists of firstly the ban on the IRA (both Official and Provisional); secondly the power for the Home Secretary to deport from Britain (excluding the Six Counties) any person suspected of 'terrorism'; and thirdly the power of the police to hold a suspect for questioning for up to 48 hours, followed by a further five days on the Home Secretary's authority (automatically granted). Over 500 people have now been detained-many for seven days or more-under the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act passed in the wake of the Birmingham bombings last November. Only a handful of those arrested have been charged with any offence, yet fifty have been served with exclusion Niall Nolan The powers conferred on the police and courts by the Act are very vague and therefore wide ranging. Under the first section, for example, a maximum sentence of an unimited fine and a five year jail sentence awaits anyone organising a meeting of more than two people 'in support of the IRA'.
In fact, says the Report, only James Fegan of Glasgow has been convicted under the Act-for allegedly selling Republican posters in a bar.
He got six months.
The fifty exclusion orders so far signed by the Home Secretary have been directed against both Official and Provisional activists without apparent distinction, as well as against general Republican sympathisers and even those who have never-or only in the distant past-been involved in Republican politics.
BLACK FARCE The 'representation' (not appeal) system is a black farce. A person subject to an exclusion order has no right to know the evidence on which the exclusion order was made; to have a public or formal hearing of the representations; or to know why the representations were unsuccessful. Lord Alport, a Tory peer, is the Home Secretary's "adviser' and makes a practice of not evidence until after interviewing the excludee.
use their powers of arrest and detention on the Irish community. Many little interest in where they were on the day of the particular 'crime' but much more in friends, colleagues and drinking companions, etc. Furthermore the seven days detention in against whom the police can produce no evidence.
NCCL WEAKNESS The weakest part of the NCCL Report is its attempt to justify the repeal of the Act in terms of its ineffectiveness against terrorists.
defend us, valuable though its report is, but rather follow the actions of launched a petition against the Actand of the London building sites which threatened to strike if an exclusion order against T&G steward it immediately was). That is the way to defeat this vicious piece of anti-working class legislation.
examining police The evidence shows that the police tion under the Act to gather informaquestioned state that the police showed is a scandal.
often appalling conditions constitutes an effective punishment for 'suspects' please the man.
UNIS We must not rely on the NCCL to Hammersmith Trades Council-which James O' Rourke was not lifted (which pilloried.
life. OF