The Battalion
WORLD & NATION 5
Wednesday, October 11,1989
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High Court OKs use of RICO
act against pro-life protestors
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court
turned away free-speech arguments Tuesday
and allowed the use of a federal racketeering law
against 26 anti-abortion protesters in Philadel
phia.
The court let stand a successful lawsuit against
the protesters by the operators of an abortion
dinic in that city.
Similar lawsuits, each invoking the Racketeer
ing Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act
(RICO), have been filed against “pro-life” activ
ists in cities such as Pittsburgh, Chicago and
Brookline, Mass.
Using the federal law lets those who win suits
collect three times whatever financial damages
they prove, a feature not available in many suits
filed under state law. In the Philadelphia case,
the clinic operators were awarded about $2,600
in tripled RICO damages.
The litigation strategy has proved troubling to
some abortion rights advocates, who fear that po
litical protesters will be labeled “racketeers” and
held financially liable for nothing more than ex
pressing their views.
For example, American Civil Liberties Union
lawyer Antonio Califa recently wrote: “The
ACLU believes that civil RICO’s potential for
chilling First Amendment rights of expression is
enormous.”
But in upholding a $ 108,000 award against the
26 Philadelphia protesters last March, the 3rd
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said their actions
“went beyond . . . constitutional rights of speech
and protest.”
The protesters on four occasions from 1984 to
1986 unlawfully entered the Northeast Women’s
Center in Philadelphia. According to trial testi
mony, protesters threw medical supplies on the
floor, damaged equipment, assaulted the clinic’s
employees and harassed patients.
Tuesday’s action does not preclude the na
tion’s highest court from granting review in some
future case in which more peaceable anti-abor
tion demonstrators are sued under the racketeer
ing law.
“This is one battle in a long war,” said Michael
McMonagle, one of the 26 Philadelphia protes
ters and executive director of the Pro-Life Coali
tion of Southeast Pennsylvania.
“We intend to continue our efforts to non-vio-
lently save children and mothers from abortion
at the abortion facilities,” McMonagle said. “This
case will not deter that one bit.”
Edmond A. Tiryak, the abortion clinic’s law
yer, said the Supreme Court action “shows that
our society will not tolerate the use of fear and in
timidation by religious fanatics to impose their
will on women seeking abortion services.”
In their appeal, the 26 protesters decried “an
unprecedented and dangerous expansion of’ the
federal law primarily aimed at fighting organized
crime. They said the law was being used to stifle
political expression.
“Under the 3rd Circuit’s interpretations of
RICO . . . Martin Luther King was a racketeer
when he trespassed on private property and con
spired with others in an attempt to change the
business policies of owners of segregated lunch
counters,” the appeal contended.
Party compromise worries Hungary
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BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) —
Some opposition politicians said
Tuesday that compromises made at
a historic Communist Party con
gress, at which the party was dis
solved and a new Socialist Party
formed, would cause political insta
bility.
The four-day congress that ended
Monday overwhelmingly approved a
new party line calling for “a constitu
tional state based on a multiparty
system where the source of the
power is the will of the people ex-
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South Africa
to release six
[political prisoners
JOHANNESBURG, South Af-
| rica (AP) — President F.W. de
I Klerk said today that six African
I National Congress leaders will
I soon be freed but that Nelson
I Mandela is not among them.
De Klerk said the formalities
| may take some time, but all the
! men had served many years and
were quite old.
■ The guerrilla leaders were
I among eight prisoners the gov-
I ernment said would soon be re-
I leased. They were sentenced to
I life in prison along with Mandela
I in 1964.
The announcement, read on
I government-run television, said
I that Mandela’s own release “is not
I now on the agenda.”
The most prominent of the
I prisoners to be released is Walter
I Sisulu, 77, who ran day-to-day
I operations of the African Na-
I tional Congress as its secretary-
I general from 1949-54, when the
I government ordered him to re-
I si S n -
Sisulu was imprisoned for life
I injune 1964 along with the other
I leaders of the guerrilla group’s
I internal military wing.
Mandela, South Africa’s most
I prominent anti-apartheid activist,
I has been in prison since 1962.
In 1962, Mandela was sen-
| tenced to five years for leaving
I the country illegally and organiz-
| ing an illegal strike by blacks.
I While serving that sentence he
I was convicted in 1964 of sabotage
I and sentenced to life in prison.
pressed in free elections.”
A manifesto adopted by the con
gress pledged commitment to de
mocracy and a break with the Lenin
ist mold. But it remained unclear
whether — and how fast — the new
party will divest itself of all remnants
of Communist rule.
The congress elected Rezsoe Ny-
ers, formerly Communist Party
chairman, as president of the new
party. It named a 25-member pre
sidium, where reformers are in the
majority.
Nyers, speaking at a rally of about
600 people Tuesday, admitted some
problems when he said that “some
still feel that the Communists are in
capable of democratization.”
Meeting reporters afterward, he
said that “major changes are re
quired for the party to win the peo
ple’s trust.”
Zoltan Biro of the opposition
Hungarian Democratic Forum ex
pressed skepticism about the politi
cal changes.
“I do not consider fortunate the
agreement between the various
forces, although I am glad that the
left wing of the party, which does
not wish to accept democracy, can
not feel at home in this successor
party,” Biro told the Mai Nap news
paper.
He was apparently referring to
the congress’ decision to reject radi
cal reformers’ demands that diehard
Marxists be shut out of the party.
“The best solution would have
been a clear split, with the left wing
of the party going off on its own,”
Biro was quoted as saying. “Judging
by the composition of the presidium,
such a split should not be ruled out.”
"We suspect that no essential
change occurred” at the party con
gress, said Tibor Vidos of the oppo
sition Free Democrats.
“Despite the role of the platforms,
the real decisions were made in cam
era by the platform leaders,” he said.
“We fear that this party will remain a
source of instability in the country.”
Zoltan Rockenbauer, a leader of
the League of Young Democrats,
said he believed unity was achieved
at the congress through compromise
on the part of radical reformers, and
could lead to “the new party’s loss of
credibility in the public view.”
A Budapest taxi driver said:
“They can talk till they drop. All I
know is that I work 14 hours a day to
feed my two kids.”
Imre Kerepes, a garage re
pairman, concurred. “All I know is
that I see the same faces,” he said.
Soviet reports of alien’s visit
grow more and more bizarre
MOSCOW (AP) — A three-eyed alien with a robot
sidekick landed by UFO and made a boy vanish by zap
ping him with a pistol, a Soviet newspaper reported
Tuesday, in a second day of strange tales in the state-
run media.
But as the bizarre saga of the space invasion of the
city of Voronezh unfolded for a second day, a scientist
whose words were used to buttress the first published
report voiced doubts, and said he was in part misqu
oted.
“Don’t believe all you hear from Tass,” Genrikh Sila-
nov, head of the Voronezh Geophysical Laboratory,
cautioned in a telephone interview with the Associated
Press from Voronezh. “We never gave them part of
what they published.”
On Monday, the usually staid, official Soviet news
agency told the world that scientists had confirmed an
alien spaceship carrying giant people with tiny heads
had touched down in Voronezh, a city of more than
800,000 people about 300 miles southeast of Moscow.
As many as three aliens 13 feet tall left the spacecraft,
described as a large shining ball, and walked in the park
with a small robot, Tass reported. A Tass duty officer
stood by the story. “It is not April Fool’s today,” he said.
The purported close encounter in Voronezh was
only the latest weird tale to appear in the Soviet media,
which under the policy of “glasnost” or openness have
recently told of other sightings of UFOs and the Yeti, or
abominable snowman.
Monday’s report spawned rumors in Moscow, includ
ing one that the aliens told Voronezh residents the
Earth would be destroyed by the year 2000 if people
didn’t stop polluting it.
Nonetheless, a Communist Party paper whose
avowed mission is to write about culture was the only
major national daily to print anything Tuesday about
the UFO, indicating more authoritative newspapers like
Pravda thought the topic too hot to handle.
Sovietskaya Kultura said its coverage was motivated
by “the golden rule of journalism: the reader must
know everything.”
“Of course, it’s hard to believe in what happened in
Don’t believe all you hear from Tass.
We never gave them part of what they
published.”
— Genrikh Silanov,
Head of Voronezh Geophysical Lab
the town,” it reported from Voronezh. “It’s even more
difficult to explain.”
The daily quoted witnesses as saying the UFO flew
into Voronezh on Sept 27. At 6:30 p.m., it said, boys
playing soccer saw a pink glow in the sky, then saw a
deep red ball about 10 yards in diameter. The ball
circled, vanished, then reappeared minutes later and
hovered, it said.
A crowd rushed to the site, Sovietskaya Kultura said,
and through an open hatch saw a “three-eyed alien”
about 10 feet tall, clad in silvery overalls and bronze-col
ored boots, and wearing a disk on his chest.
The Return
of
Coffeehouse
J^Ln evening of quintessentiaCentertainment...
music poetry drama comedy
the strange and bizarre
Friday the 13th, 8:00pm
Rumours in the MSC
and it's FREE
4r MSC Town Hall $3
FREE WINDSHIELD
REPLACEMENT*
Bring your insurance claims to us and we will pay your
deductible up to $50.00.
AAA AUTO GLASS
2111 S. College
Bryan Paint & Glass
779-1011
THE ECUADORIAN STUDENT ASSOCIATION
invites you to:
3-MEN VOLLEYBALL TOURNAMENT
at: Sneaker’s Sports Club
on: October 14th
** Grand Prize: $100,
inscriptions $8.°° per team
at: MSC (October 12th and 13th)
for more info, call 696-7864
00 * *
* Double Reggae $
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* Benefit for Students *
$ Against Apartheid H
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Spy vs. Spy
and
Wazobia
Oct. 12 Parthenon
tickets $5
available at Lippman Music Co.
the MSC table, & at Parthenon
feAN«
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