US activist threatens to call boycott to Sydney Olympics
Tuesday 8 July, 1997 (3:51pm AEST)
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American civil rights activist, Lorenzo Ervin says he will call for a
boycott of the Sydney Olympics if he is deported from Australia.

The former black panther says he expects to be taken into custody and
deported after his closed meeting with immigration officials in Brisbane
today.

Mr Ervin says he has no chance of a fair hearing and accused Prime
Minister, John Howard, of double standards.

He says South African President, Nelson Mandela, was allowed into Australia
despite having a criminal record.

Mr Ervin says there will be international condemnation if he is deported.

Mr Howard, says he is surprised Mr Ervin was allowed into Australia,
considering the existence of a law which allows visitors to be rejected if
they are of bad character.

"Now I would have thought somebody who's been convicted of plane hijacking
and who is invited to this country to address a group of people who are
declared anarchists is hardly somebody who qualifies as being of good
character," Mr Howard says.

"I can't for the life of me understand how, if the proper procedures were
followed, he was allowed in." 

But Mr Ervin's solicitor, Terry Fisher, says there's no reason for Mr Ervin
to be deported, based on a hijacking conviction from the 1960s.

"The interesting thing is that he's received an executive clemency under
the Bush administration in 1988 in relation to the offences in 1969," Mr
Fisher says.

"There's quite clearly been no consideration given to that, in effect, it
amounts to a pardon by the US government for the actions back in the late
sixties."