Speaker’s Ban Contested

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31767, 26 August 1968, Page 1

Speaker’s Ban Contested

(N.Z. Press Association)

WELLINGTON, August 25.

The Speaker of the House of Representafives was urged today to reverse his decision banning the use of loud-speakers at a public meeting in the grounds of Parliament buildings tomorrow called to protest against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

A spokesman for the Council of Civil Liberties said: “As any participant will know, public meetings of any size held in the open are seriously handicapped by the absence of an efficient amplifying system. “The speakers cannot be properly heard and consequently neither they nor their listeners can enjoy full freedom of speech.”

Loudspeakers were used as a matter of course at public gatherings of many kinds, and on special occasions in the grounds of Parliament Buildings, said the spokesman.

A spokesman for the Student Action Committee on Czechoslovakia said this afternoon that the decision was a veto to any effective. expression of public opinion. “Without loudspeakers, addressing the crowd would be impossible; and the meeting would simply degenerate into futile slogan shouting and banner waving,” he said.

The president of the Victoria University National Club, Mr W. Logan, said the absence of loud-speakers would make speaking most difficult for invited prominent speakers, and would also make crowd control impossible to guarantee.