Another Demonstration Outside Soviet Legation

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28130, 20 November 1956, Page 21

Another Demonstration Outside Soviet Legation

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, November 19. Protesting against Russia’s actions in Hungary, young Wellington men gathered for the third time in 10 days outside the Soviet Legation in Messines road, Karori, yesterday afternoon. It was the largest and most violent of the demonstrations.

Upwards of 50 youths marched outside the brick-walled legation, chanting, booing and singing, and calling on the Russians to honour eight demands connected with Hungary. The large iron gates in the driveway were closed and padlocked when the demonstrators arrived yesterday carrying banners and a large black coffin on which was painted, “Here Lies the Body of Freedom.” Throughout the demonstrations, which lasted about half an hour, a member of the legation staff played a small garden hose on the lawns and the drive and took no notice of the banners and the coffin tossed over the wall. At intervals during the demonstration, a curtain at one of the windows was moved aside and a camera appeared. No effort was made by members of the staff to remove any of the debris in the garden and on the driveway of the legation while any of the onlookers were there. The demonstrators marched down Messines road carrying banners with the slogans “Bulganin for the salt mines—and see how he likes it,” “The Devil take the Russians,” and “Cease the deportation of Hungarian youth.” The youths, on arrival at the gates, sang the National Anthem. Hundreds of leaflets were then thrown into the air and over the legation walls and pasted on. to the gates. Holding their banners aloft, the youths marched up

and down chanting “Freedom for Hungary” and booing. The group, which was not the one that demonstrated last Friday evening, issued a pamphlet headed: “Demands in the cause of peace.”

It contained eight demands: "Hands off Hungary: the withdrawal of Soviet troops from satellites; allow United Nations observers into Hungary; free democratic elections in satellites; cease deportation of Hungarian youth: repudiate the Warsaw Pact; no Russian volunteers in the Middle East; cease shipment of arms to the Middle East.”