POLICE DEFIED

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 18, 21 July 1934, Page 5

POLICE DEFIED

A BANNED MEETING

SIX ARRESTS IN AUCKLAND

CROWD IN UGLY MOOD

(By Telegraph—.Press Association.)

AUCKLAND, July 20.

Six men were arrested as the result of a demonstration at the corner of Pitt and Beresford Streets tonight, when in defiance of a ban imposed by the City Council an attempt was made to hold a street meeting in a campaign for free speech.

The meeting was arranged by an organisation styling itself the Free Speech Council, on which the Communist Party has representation.

A large detachment of police, assisted later by a squad of mounted constables, had the situation well in hand, although for a few minutes shortly after 8 o'clock, the crowd appeared to be m an ugly mood. The- agitators and spectators were a,U dispersed shortly after 9 o'clock. - . . ■ Earlier in' the week: mimeographed sheets had been circulated in the city advertising the meeting. They were issued by the local party committee of Hie Auckland section of the Communist Party m ]Niew Zealand. Some time betore 8 o'clock a crowd began to collect and it grew rapidly until several hundred people we.re moving in groups nn and down Pitt Street.

# Parties of police patrolled the streets issuing orders to all pedestrians to keep moving. Shortly after S o'clock the first disturbance occurred ' when, a young man wearing a black beret and carrying an armful of papers attempted to address the crowd. He was warned to desist, but when he continued to speak he was seized by several constables -and marched to' the waiting police van. ' . , ANOTHER DISTURBANCE. The crowd followed in the1 wake of the arrested man, who continued to exhort them.. He was still shouting When he was locked in the van to bo conveyed to the watch-house. The van had hardly left when the .noise of a second disturbance drew the crowd back to the corner of Beresford Street. People were swarming, over the roadway, and sporadic attempts were mado'by several men to address the crowd.

One of the agitators climbed :oa the roof of a public lavatory in the centre of the street. and spoke for several minutes. The crowd booed and jeered as a constable climbed up on the roof. The speaker jumped down and was immediately taken in charge-by waiting policemen. He struggled violently as he was dragged to a. car. > Almost simultaneously, four other men were arrested further down Beresford Street, and they were kept in. the Central Fire Station under a ' police guard pending the return of the .van. There was a diversion when another man appeared through the first floor windows of a building. Standing on top of the verandah, he spoke for several minutes, with occasional apprehensive glances at the open windows behind Mni. ■ Policemen entered the building, but the speaker appeared to escape' from the top of the verandah into an adjoining property, which rises steeply from the road. . • MOUNTED POLICE APPEAR. ' The running was taken up by another man,, who stood on,the verandah, of an apartment house two doors further down Beresford Street, and was allowed to speak without interference. He addressed the gathering for several minutes without interference on. the rights of free speech, but at about 8.30 p.m. a squad of mounted police appeared from Pitt Street A section of the crowd .hooted, but .the spectators, who considerably outnumbered the: agita-tors,-immediately began to move off. Mounted constables moved np and down r the street, gradually clearing even the pavements. Other police assisted in keeping the crowd moving, and by 9 o'clock, when the shops had shut, only a few men in scattered groups remained in the. vicinity. .......

Not a police baton had been drawn during the disturbance. The arrested men were taken into, custody on vari-ous-charges -of holding a street meeting without'a permit from the CityCouncil, behaving in a disorderly manner, inciting to disorder, obstructing and resisting the police, loitering in a public place, and using indecent language. . .

No bail was allowed, and all six men will appear in the Magistrate's Court.