Category: News; Radio 4
Date: 10.12.2005
Printable version
Peter Hain says he still supports the principle of potentially illegal direct action and states that if he was 30 years younger he would be disrupting English cricket matches with Zimbabwe.
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The Northern Ireland Secretary makes these remarks in Politically Charged, a new 大象传媒 Radio 4 series about politically controversial legal cases.
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The first programme is broadcast on Sunday 11 December at 10.45pm.
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It covers Hain's trial in 1972 for criminal conspiracy, stemming from his role in organising the disruption of South African sporting tours to protest against apartheid.
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He was convicted on one charge, but acquitted on most charges after the jury failed to agree.
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On England playing cricket with Zimbabwe, he says: "I do not think these tours should happen. I don't think the English cricket team should have gone to Zimbabwe.
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"Mugabe is an oppressive tyrant, and if I were 30 years younger and not playing the role that I am now, I'd probably be organising similar direct action protests to the one that I did all those years ago."
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On his direct action campaigning, he says:
"I was always committed to non-violent direct action, for example running onto tennis courts as we did in 1969 in Bristol, or running onto cricket pitches, sitting down and being carried off, or we did some imaginative things, like people ran onto Twickenham and chained themselves to the rugby posts and had to be cut free, or an activist booked herself into the Springbok hotel near Hyde Park and gummed up the door locks of the Springbok bedrooms so they had to break out in order to get to the match on time.
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"We did that kind of thing and, yes, it did shade over into potentially illegal activity, though not on the scale which I subsequently found myself in at the Old Bailey."
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On his trial, he says:
"I felt completely vindicated because I came away from it with a 拢200 fine for sitting on a tennis court in Bristol, a Davis cup tennis match, for a couple of minutes.
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"I was acquitted of the other charges which could have dispatched me to prison had I been convicted."
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He says: "I'm proud I took part in those events, perhaps one of the most significant things I did in my political career in stopping those sports tours, because as Nelson Mandela told me when he got out of prison, they were decisive blows against apartheid, he thought perhaps the most decisive."
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Notes to Editors
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If using any of this material, please credit Politically Charged on 大象传媒 Radio 4 at 10.45pm on Sunday 11 December 2005.
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PR
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