CONTROL IN ITALY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 148, 20 December 1943, Page 5

CONTROL IN ITALY

BAN ON POLITICAL ACTION

LONDON, December 18. A strong protest against an Allied Srohibition of a joint meeting in faples of the committees of National Liberation from liberated Italy was delivered at the 'Amgot headquarters today,' says the Naples correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain. The protest stated that the ban was in complete violation of the terms of the Moscow agreement on Italy. The original protest was presented yesterday, and it charged Amgot with becoming a "tool of Neofascism." The Amgot officials demanded and received an apology tfor that phrase, and a revised document was subsequently submitted. Reuters Naples correspondent says it is understood the ban was imposed because Naples is too close to the fighting line for political activities to be permitted.

A message published on Saturday said: "The Allied Military Government is stated to be considering the suspension of all political activity in liberated Italy, because an explosive situation has arisen between groups supporting King Victor and others who are anti-monarchist. Violence has already occurred between two groups in widely-separated parts of south Italy." A joint three-Power communique after the Moscow conference in November stated that the Foreign Secretaries agreed that the following measures are important and should be put into effect: .. . Freedom of speech , . . and public meeting shall he restored in full measure to the Italian people, who shall also be entitled to form anti-Fascist political groups.