[The censored version of the BBC Play for…]

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The censored version of the BBC Play for Today on the trial of Willie Gallagher tating attack on martial law in northern Irelanddespite the cuts that were made.

The BBC changed the commentary that introduced the film. It cut another passage altogether. What it could not change was the verbatim official account of the trial of Willie Gallagher.

Gallagher is no work of fiction. He is on hunger strike close to the point of death in Long Kesh concentration camp. His trial, and events around the play raise the pressure for the whole weight of the Labour movement to be mobilised on both sides of the Irish Sea to put an end to the occupation of northern Ireland and the massive represssion that goes with it.

The events around the play have demonstrated the dilemma that the British state and a nominally Labour Government find themselves in.

On the one hand the BBC proved again it is willing to go to extreme lengths of censorship to protect the state from criticism, even in TV 'drama' On the other it proved unable to carry that censorship to the point required by the statenot just a total blackout of the play, but a total blackout of news that it had ever been written and stifled.

The police proved again that they are ready to use the legislation they have been given to hold anyone in opposition to the occupation- however blatantly. Yet they too were unable to do the job the state required. They were unable to hold Willie's father indefinitely and without publicity.

Niceties

The result has been to demonstrate to thousands of workers the abolition of 'democratic' niceties, without achieving any tangible gain for the ruling class.

Author Caryl Churchill and director Roland Joffe were correct to resist using the courts to try to stop the play going out since the courts would have been delighted to stop the show.

Just a sample of the changes shows that the only aim was to present the stooge trials and the Government in a more favourable light.

Churchill: According to the Diplock Committee it was diff. icult to get convictions in the courts because of the intimidation of potential witnesses and the difficulty of finding impart¡al jurors for sectarian crimes.

BBC Censor:The main problem for the courts in Northern Ireland has been the intimidation of witnesses and the finding of impartial jurors.

Churchill: The rules of evidence have been altered so that a confession is allowed as evidence even if it was obtained by threats or force.

Censor: Under this Act a judge may admit as evidence a confession obtained under intense interrogation.

Churchill: (The Diplock Committee was set up)...to find ways of dealing with terrorists other than by internment without trial which was causing widespread disapproval.

Censor: In 1972 a commission was set up under Lord Diplock, an English judge, to find ways of bringing terrorists to justice.

The passage cut out altogether pointed to the rising rate of convictions under the no jury trials and asked whether it was worth putting up a defence.

The entire labour movement must now demand an end to all the secrets and censorship on the British role in northern Ireland. They cannot censor the entire working class.

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