ADVISORY L SINCE SEPTEMBER 19T: -40.000 PEOPLE HAVE BEEN KILLED - 30.000 IN JAIL - 25 CONCENTRATION CAMPS SET UP ACTIONS AF WOCKING DEPORT THE AMBASSADOR CHILEAN DEPORT THE Several hundred people took to the streets of Birmingham last Saturday southern flank.
met the same fate.
CHILEAN AMBASSADOR Sacked Press freedom in Lisbon and London is following a curiously similar path.
Left-wing journalists were among the first to be swept out of their jobs by Portugal's Sixth Provisional Government after the abortive military revolt in November. The mass media are now miriy back in the hands of those determined to eliminate the gains made by the Portuguese working class, and ensure that socialism does not disfigure NATO's Republica, the Lisbon daily run LIVC. under workers control and effectively placed at the disposal of the workers movement, was closed by the Government at the end of December. The work ers' paper in Setubal, O Setubalense, has Radio Renascensa, the broadcasting station wrested by its workers from the reactionary Catholic hierarchy, has now been handed back to the Church. It was mitter by order of the Government which was one of the provocations leading to the 25 November revolt.
At the same time as the strides towards real press freedom in Portugal have been aborted for the moment. the BBC has sacked two Portuguese journalists employed by its External Services for daring to challenge the Corporation's biased transmissions to Portugal. This bias is ably revealed in a dossier prepared by the journalists Antonio Cartaxo and Jorge Ribeiro, •who worken at sush-souse tol twelve and seven years respectively -and reported by The Times.
The dossier shows that the BBC has weighted its broadcasts in tavour o counter-revolutionary forces, a trend justified by Gerard Mansell, managing director of external services, in the following terms: "There is clearly a consensus among British political and broadcasting authorities that parliamentary democracy should prevail in Portugal in preference to the revolutionary alternaPickets The result of the final internal appeal Dy Cartaro and RiDeo or To instatement, which is supported by the Association of Broadcasting Staffs to which the two journalists belong, as well as by a number of Labour MPs and trade union leaders (see letter), is expected shortly.
The ACT (cine technicians) shop at the BBC TV Centre has called for indust rial action if the appeal does not succeed, and pickets of the BBC have been organi sed by the Media Support Group of the Solidarity Campaign with the Portuguese November condemned the mass media's bias on Portugal, and a dossier on its coverage is being prepared for the Campaign's national conference on 13 March Details from: Media Support Group Portugal Solidarity Campaign, 12 Little Newport Street. London We. The nex meeting is at 6.30 pm, Friday 30 January at the Pillar Box pub. 59 Mount Pleasant WC1 (Chancery Lane tube).