>From MCELROY@zodiac.rutgers.edu Sun May 2 19:49:38 1993 URGENT ACTION REQUEST GERRY ADAMS VISA DECISION DUE SHORTLY The decision on the visa application of Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams to visit the United States is believed due very shortly. You, your friends etc must call your Member of Congress and Senators and certainly President Clinton as soon as you get this notice. Telegrams are okay, but there is no time for letters: the best method to write may be by fax. Please do not wait to act. Call as many activists as you can and have them call within their circle of contacts. PHONE #s: House of Representitves switchboard--1-202-255-3121 Senate Switchboard--1-202-224-3121 White House--1-202-456-1414 TELEGRAMS: (call switchboards for office number of your representative/senator) Senate--The Senate, Washington DC 20510 House--The House of Representatives, Washington DC 20515 White House--1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington DC 20500 FAX: The White House 1-202-456-2461 ********** An Irish Northern Aid Committee Information Paper... U.S. Government Policy of Censorship Through Denial of Visas to Irish Republicans The United States Government has for the past 17 years excluded members of the Sinn Fein Party in Ireland from entering the United States *WHAT IS SINN FEIN? Sinn Fein is Ireland's oldest active political party and is associated with the traditional aspirations of Irish Republicanism, i.e., a united, 32 county nation with guaranteed freedoms and rights for all of its citizens. It represents a prominent segment of opinion in the north of Ireland which must be considered to have a true picture of the conflict there. Approximately 40 percent of the total Nationalist vote in the North goes to Sinn Fein candidates. It is, for example, the second largest party in terms of seats in the Belfast City Council. *U.S. VISA DENIAL POLICY: Virtually all prominent members of Sinn Fein have been denied visas to enter the United States to express their viewpoints in spite of America's fundamental principles of freedom of speech and association and our right to relevant information. Since 1974, Gerry Adams, twice elected Member of British Parliament and President of Sinn Fein; Owen Carron, an incumbent member of Parliament; Derry City Councilor Hugh Brady; Tyrone Councilor Pearse McAleer; leading labor union official and Sinn Fein member Phil Flynn; the editor of Ireland's largest political weekly newspaper Danny Morrison; Sinn Fein executive officers Thomas Hartley and Joseph Cahill. and Sinn Fein Press Officer Joe Austin, and many others have been denied visas to enter the US to present their cases to the American people after having been invited to do so. *MEMBERS OF CONGRESS DENIED: There are many embarrassing illustrations of this policy. In Feb. 1985, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher addressed a full session of Congress and spoke specifically about the British presence in Ireland. Ten Congress members invited Mr. Adams to reply. The State Dept. denied him a visa thereby denying members of Congress from having the opportunity to question Mr. Adams, a Member of Parliament, and to have such information available in exercising their Congressional judgement regarding foreign policy. Mr. Adams has been invited by the Massachusetts Assembly and Michigan Senate, the New York Irish American Legislators Association, the Philadelphia and Southern California Brehon Society of Lawyers and Judges, many colleges and universities, Irish American and scores of other organizations. Each time the right of American citizens were contravened by the State Department's Irish censorship policy. *McCARREN-WALTER ACT Recent reforms in the McCarron-Walter Act, passed during the McCarthy War in the 1950's have not altered policy with regard to Irish Republicans. In spite of these changes, the State Dept. still excludes Gerry Adams, a man never convicted of a crime anywhere. This policy makes a mockery of the protection against arbitrary and unfair visa denials decided by the Supreme Court in 'Kleindiest vs. Mandel'. Gerry Adams can and does walk the streets of London and Dublin and the capitols of Europe, yet the US government denies its citizens from meeting with him to discuss issues of mutual interest and concern. For the past 15-plus years, because of our government's policy of visa denial, Americans have been given a slanted, one- sided view of that conflict. If the State Dept. through its bureaucracy can manipulate American public opinion by allowing only into this country voices which it wishes to be supported, while censoring all other viewpoints, then our government will have usurped the right of the people to control foreign policy. for further info on Ireland on Peacenet, see 'reg.ireland'.