H.A.R.T. refused visa for S.A.

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32879, 30 March 1972, Page 1

H.A.R.T. refused visa for S.A.

The chairman of the Halt All Racist Tours organisation (Mr T. R. Richards) has been refused an entry visa for South Africa.

Mr Richards has described this ruling of the ' South African Government as the action of “worried and frightened men.” In a statement telephoned from New York and issued last evening by the New Zealand University Students’ Association, Mr Richards said that the refusal of his visa told as much' about the South African Government as the policy of the New Zealand Prime Minister (Mr Marshall) of “building bridges” towards South Africa.

“The South African Con-sul-General in New Zealand (Mr P. H. Philip) often speaks of the need for dialogue and reason to prevail, yet here is a clear case of his Government’s efforts at frustrating reason and preventing dialogue,” Mr Richards said. “The bridges that Mr Marshall wants to build are, together with the bridges built to Germany by Neville Chamberlain in the late 1930’5, the most structurally unsound of the twentieth century; for not only does the South!

African Government decide which South Africans may cross Mr Marshall’s bridge but now they are apparently quite prepared to decide also which New Zealanders are allowed to cross that bridge,” Mr Richards said. Mr Richards said that he challenged Mr Marshall to say publicly whether or not he was concerned that New Zealanders with anti-apart-heid views were being prevented from visiting South Africa.