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Ex-soldier victim of interference in TV coverage of Ireland.

Pointing to the way coverage is slanted, Hammond showed the close parallels between a vicioușly racialist, anti-Irish editorial in The Times of 1846 and a similarly racialist passage in a Bernard Levin article written in The Times of September 1977.

Conferences

And, looking at the ways of chailenging this through the labour movement, he went on to discuss the treatment of Ireland at the last three NUJ conferences.

In 1977 a Book Branch motion calling for troops out of Ireland and the repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act was heavily defeated.

A resolution from Magazine Branch, however, calling vaguely for an inquiry into press censorship was carried, after one speaker had effectively shown the contrast between press coverage of the reactionary "Peace People' compared with that of the Troops Out Movement.

Repeal PTA

Last year had seen another to a vote, a battle had been waged by Oxford delegates and others to force it onto the agenda-setting the stage for a debate at next year's NUJ conference, which is to be held at Port Rush in the six counties.

of PTA Dave Swingler Jonathan Hammond Dave Swingler, Birmingham NUJ member and claiming the doubtful privilege of being the only ex-soldier to have been arrested three times under the PTA, spoke briefly on his experiences as a serving soldier in the six counties.

Using a volunteer he demonstrated the physical duress under which Irish workers are stopped suspicion and "questioned" by the army, and went on to fist first-hand recollections of army terror tactics against the nationalist minority.

Taking up the theme of media censorship, Dublin NUJ member Brian Trench opened his speech by quoting Conor Cruise O'Brien, the former Irish government minister and now editor of the Observer, as declaring that:

"Any coverage of Sinn Fein is too much"

As O'Brien's stand indicates, the media censorship of the war in the occupied six counties applies not only in Britain, but also in the Irish Republic, insisted Trench.

No reply The media combine to portray the anti-imperialist forces as devoid of legitimate political views, and therefore not even worthy of a serious reply.

This is why the Offences Against the State Act in the South outlaws the reporting of statements from members of "illegal organisations"-meaning the IRA.

This unenforcible legislation is intended above all as a deterrent to prevent journalists seriously analysing the views of the republican movement and presenting them objecti argued Trench.

Based in London

• The British press, too, confines its reporting largely to relaying the statements from official government sourcesindeed the Daily Telegraph's Northern Ireland correspondent is actually based in London, while the Sunday Times correspondent resides in Manchester; the Sun relies simply on freelance coverage from the six counties!

While there is physical interference in reporting, Trench continued, this is limited by the gut reaction of most journalists against the existence of open censors vetting their material.

Instead the media largely operates its own restrictionswith occasional intervention from management and even government level.

Censorship As a former Minister for Posts and Telegraphs in the South, Conor Cruise O'Brien presided over the high point of censorship of Irish television and radio coverage of the war in the North, said Trench, listing a series of examples.

Brian Trench The significance of the secret army document recently published by Republican News was that it exposed the gulf between the army's real assessment of the strengths of the IRA, and the cultivated media presentation of them as an isolated handful of mindless criminals.

It is skilful media coverage that has helped to push Ireland to the margins of British politics declared Trench.

Such censorship must be seen in class terms-the suppression of debate on an issue for which the British and Irish ru ing classes have no solution.

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call passed Tom Litterick speaking from the platform •These are documents revealing the fall of liberal democracy", proclaimed Tom Litterick, brandishing copies of the Bennett Report and the Shackleton Report on the workings of the PTA.

"Instead of moving forward over the last five years, the social democrats who control the Labour Party moved backwards to abridge the rights of the citizens"

This, declared Litterick, was because the "centres of power are at risk", both as a result of the weakness of capitalism itself and the strength of the organised working class.

Detailing what the PTA means in practice Litterick traced through a case of one innocent year old Birmingham man, bru ally seized and detained by poli 3 at 7 a.m. following an unsub :antiated "tip-off" from an alcoholic informant.

3,800 detained 3,800 people have so far been detained under this legislation, stressed Litterick.

Brendan Gallagher himself had been arrested 200 times by the military. Imagine the furore about human rights the press would create if it was reported that a Soviet Jew had been arrested 200 times by the KGB!

Parliament, concluded Litterick, is "a fraud, a taik shop".

The first priority must be to look into the labour movement; we need to act in the trade union and the Labour Party to broaden, deepen and safeguard democracy.

This view that the PTA is chiefly a threat to British democracy was later emphasised by Litterick in his reply to discussion.

But Litterick was loudly and repeatedly heckled by Irish workers as he attempted to prevaricate on the question of immediate withdrawal of British troops from Ireland.

Arguing that it was necessary for British imperialism to "set a date for withdrawal' and then discuss "political • solutions" with "all those concerned" Litterick provoked most anger when he floated the idea of British cash aid to the Irish Republic to facilitate a "peaceful " withdrawal.

"We don't want -or yo troops workers The Oxford conference • justice-just Inos out" yelle angry Hostility And Litterick faced further hostility when he attempted to justify the Parliamentary support that he and other Tribune MPs had given to Callaghan's reactionary policies, by arguing that Labour constituents "would not have fargiven" the lefts' if their actions had brought down the Labour government.

"They didn't forgive you anyway" , shouted a heckler, while others in the audience responded to • Litterick's statement that "It is up to you to fight in the Labour Party and the trade unions" • by asking "what about you, then?"

The conference went on to vote overwhelmingly in favour of four resolutions.

One, tabled by the Oxford ACTSS 5/833 Branch, called for an end to press, censorship, condemned the British military occupation of the six counties, and called for immediate withdrawai of troops as a step towards the self determination of the trish people.

It was amended to include a declaration of support for the courageous struggle of republican prisoners in Long Kesh and Armagh for the restoration of political status.

Other resolutions called for a campaign for the sending of a local labour movement fact finding delegation to Ireland and the launching of a trade union bulletin on Ireland; and for participation in the troops out' demonstration being organised on August 12.

Moving a resolution calling for a campaign to make the NUJ leadership call a national conference on media censorship, John Lister, Oxford NUJ Branch Secretary, stressed that every trade unionist in the hall should also take the lessons of the day's conference into his or her union branch.

• Start of fight Speaking as one of the organisers of the conference he stressed:

"Your union leaders help reelect Callaghan, Healey and Mason and the Labour traitors who have stepped up the war in Ireland. They must be fought.

'We don't want this conference to be a one-off affair. We want it to be the start of a consistent fight in the unions and the Labour Party aimed at forcing British troops out of Ireland"