No passport for bishop

Press, 5 August 1981, Page 12

No passport for bishop

NZPA . Melboufne A South African bishop who opposes apartheid has said that he doubted whether he would be able to visit Australia and New Zealand this '. year because. •.■ the authorities had confiscated his passport. The bishop, the Rt Rev. Desmond Tutu, aged 49, had been invited to speak in Melbourne by the Anglican archbishop, the Most Rev. Robert Dann, and was to have attended a conference', organised by the Australian Council of Churches in September.

Speaking to a Melbourne reporter from Johannesburg,

Bishop Tutu said that his passport had been confiscated earlier this year when he had returned from a visit to Europe and the United States.

Bishop Tutu, an outspoken critic of apartheid, is president of the South African Council- of Churches, which represents 15 million Chtistiahs: He is best known for his- description of apartheid as one of the “most vicious systems since Nazism.” .. Bishop Tutu said that his -passport had been confiscated because he had said that Western countries should use political, diplomatic, and economic pressure on South Africa to fotce it to end apartheid. He said, “The authorities Said I had abused the privilege of holding a passport.” The State-controlled radio and television had been used by the authorities to make virulent attacks on him although a pamphlet war against him was easing. ' Archbishop Dann said that he would arrange a public meeting and a gathering of clergy to hear Bishop Tutu if he was allowed to visit Melbourne.

- The Australian Federal Government hag appealed to South Africa to allow Bishop .Tutu to Tnake the,-visit. : -