The anti-apartheid activists would seek to disrupt matches and sometimes carried out pitch invasions.
(this picture is from Murrayfield in Edinburgh)
Jonathan talked about finally (“I tried several but I'm not very good at climbing fences”) getting on the pitch in Aldershot .
He pointed out that the police took photographs of them, which should have been destroyed when he and his co-arrestees were found not guilty of any charges, and made the point that the police should follow the law themselves.
The first document shown today was [UCPI 00000 34318] – we are told that this is a Special Branch (not purely SDS) report on the Anti Apartheid League's 1969 AGM.
The Inquiry tell us that this has not been shown to Jonathan before, but does not explain why they withheld it from him.
They still have not uploaded it to their website so you can't see it either.
He was on the exec committee of the Anti Apartheid Movement around this time, and thinks he was likely present at this AGM.
He explained more about the Special Action group – Hummerstone asked if they functioned as the 'covert arm' of the Stop the Seventy Tour?
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The #SpyCopsInquiry starts again this morning, hearing from Lord Peter Hain.
He was involved in campaigning against apartheid.
As his opening statement says:
"From the 1960s onwards, the international movement against the Apartheid regime in South Africa was one of the world’s largest social movements. Abhorrence at the racist and murderous regime was shared by people aroundthe globe."
(2)
"They formed campaigns in support of those in South Africa who were struggling for change and people in Britain played a central rolein campaigning for, and eventually achieving,that change"
(3)
You can watch proceedings (with a ten minute delay) at
(2)
First, the Inquiry checked if there were any questions for Jonathan Rosenhead. Mitting had a question for him – did he wish the Inquiry to act promptly about the miscarriage of justice that we heard about? Yes
(3)
[UCPI 00000 8660] ucpi.org.uk/publications/s…
STST's first national conference took place in March 1970. Both of today's witnesses are listed as attending it.
Jonathan pointed out that the speech reported on was given by Peter Hain, who was“by no means an extreme leftist”
(we'll hear from Peter Hain himself tomorrow)
The Stop the Seventy Tour campaigners felt that it was important to hold as many demonstrations as possible, at sports grounds all over the country...
Rosehead explained that they had originally targeted the South African cricket team, but then realised there was a planned rugby team tour as well, so expanded their activities.
He explained that -like the Committee of 100 in the 1960s – his group used Non-Violent Direct Action (NVDA)
“We had the same philosophy or actually in a sense offering ourselves up as a sacrifice to the law to demonstrate that there were things we thought were outrageous and this was one way we could do it”
"He said that it had been proved in the past specific organisations definitely had police spies among their members and attending their meetings"
"He added that everyone present should continually be checking up on each otherto ensure that each individual was a genuine revolutionary and not a police spy"
"He then said that any police spied found in revolutionary groups should, at least, get a 'good hiding' from the others"