BAN DEFIED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22320, 21 July 1934, Page 14

BAN DEFIED

A STREET DEMONSTRATION RIGHT OF FREE SPEECH POLICE CONTROL SITUATION SIX ARRESTS EFFECTED (Peb United Pbess Association.) AUCKLAND, July 20. Six men were arrested aa the result of a demonstration at the corner of Pitt and Beresford streets to-night, when, in defiance of a ban imposed by the City Council, an attempt was made to hold a street meeting in the campaign for free speech. The meeting was arranged by an organisation styling itself the Free Speech Council, on which the Communist Party has representation. A large detachment of police, assisted later by a squad of mounted constables, had the situation well in hand. Although for a few minutes shortly after 8 o'clock the crowd appeared to be in an ugly mood, the agitators and the spectators were all dispersed shortly after 9 o'clock. Earlier in the week mimeographed sheets had been circulated in the city advertising the meeting. They were issued by the Ideal party committee of the Auckland section of the Communist Party of New Zealand. Some time before 8 o'clock a crowd began to collect. It grew rapidly until several hundred people were moving in groups up and down Pitt street. Parties of police patrolled the streets, issuing orders to all pedestrians to keep moving. Shortly after 8 o'clock the first disturbance occurred. A young man wearing a black beret and carrying an armful of papers attempted to address the crowd. He was warned to desist, but when he continued to speak he was seized by several constables and marched to a waiting police van. The crowd followed in the wake of the arrested man, who continued to exhort them. He was still shouting when he was locked in the van to be conveyed to the watch-house. The van had hardly left when the noise of a second disturbance drew the crowd back to the corner of Beresford street. People were swarming over the roadway, and sporadic attempts were made by various men to address the crowd. One of the agitators climbed on the roof of the public lavatory in the centre of the street and spoke for several minutes. The crowd booed and jeered aa a constable climbed on the roof. The speaker jumped down and was immediately taken in charge by waiting policemen. He struggled violently as he was dragged to a car. .. Practically simultaneously, four Other men were arrested further down Beresford street, and were kept in the Central Fire Station under police guard pending the return of the van. There was a diversion when another man appeared through a first-floor window of a building. Standing on top of the veranda he spoke for several minutes, with occasional apprehensive glances at the open windows behind him. Policemen entered the building, but the speaker appeared to escape from the top of the veranda into the adjoining property which rises steeply from the road. The running was taken up by another man who stood on the veranda of an apartment house, two dpors further down Beresford street, and was allowed to speak without interference. He addressed the gathering for several minutes without interference on the rightß of free speech; but at about 8.30 p.m. a squad of mounted police appeared from Pitt street. A section of the crowd hooted, but the spectators, who considerably outnumbered the agitators, immediately began to move off. The mounted cons'tables moved up and down the street, gradually clearing even the pavements. Other police assisted in keeping the crowd moving, and by 9 o'clock, when the shop 9 had shut, only a few men in scattered groups remained in the vicinity. Not a police baton had been drawn during the disturbance. The arrested men were taken into custody on various charges of holding a street meeting without a permit from the City Council; behaving in a disorderly manner; inciting to disorder; obstructing and resisting the police; loitering in a public place; and using indecent language. No bail was allowed and all six men will appear in the Police Court to-morrow.