HUNGER STRIKERS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 193, 17 July 1941, Page 8

HUNGER STRIKERS.

AUSTRALIAN CASE. SYDNEY, July IC. The case of two men, Oax Thomas and Horace Alelitf, who have been hunger striking for 14 days as a protest against their “illegal detention” under the National Security Regulations, is creating considerable comment in Labour circles and has reached a stage when the Government has been compelled to take cognisance of the situation. The men had served a sen-1 tonce of six months for the possession of illegal literature and were re-arrested upon their release. They claimed that, having served tho sentence, their further detention without trial was unjust and illegal. A number of unions and women’s organisations have actively sought their release. The War Advisory Council took tho matter up to-day and when about to enter the meeting the Prime Minister was heckled by a troop of women sympathisers of the hunger strikers, who during tho week-end were transferred from the gaol to the Yaralla Hospital. Announcing the Government’s intention not to release Thomas and Atcliff, the Prime Minister, in a statement after the War Council meeting, said they werS originally arrested for subversive- activities. They had exercised the right of appeal against their further detention before tho Advisory Committee provided under tho National Security Regulations. Instead of proceeding with tho appeal they had elected to hunger strike.