Request to athletes

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33434, 16 January 1974, Page 14

Request to athletes

(N.Z.P.A. Stall Correspondent)

LONDON

The British anti-apartheid campaigner, Mr P. Hain, has been reported in the “Guardian” as asking all countries taking part in the Commonwealth Games to declare a boycott of events in which British sportsmen take part unless the Lions Rugby tour of South Africa this year is cancelled.

But later, in a telephone interview, Mr Hain said from Brighton that he wished no disruption of the Games.

“The timing of this appeal is to coincide with the Commonwealth Games, but it is not so much disruption as the exertion of pressure on individuals that we are aiming for.”

| Mr Hain is the deputy chairman of the Halt ihe Apartheid Rugby Tour organisation, which plans to stop the Lions tour.

• “We will be getting in touch with Trevor Richards, of H.A.R.T. (Halt All Racist Tours), in New Zealand,” he said. “We are hoping the anti-apartheid movement there will send letters to leading members of the British Games team pointing out that Rugby is the only major sport maintaining conI tacts with South Africa.”