http://www.smh.com.au/daily/content/970709/national/national1.html

Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday, July 9, 1997

Activist in jail after visa seized

Ban ... activist Lorenzo Ervin. Photograph by STEVE HOLLAND

By JODIE BROUGH in Canberra

The Federal Government cancelled former Black Panther Mr Lorenzo Kom'boa
Ervin's visa yesterday on the grounds that he was not of good character,
while Mr Ervin's lawyers claimed the Prime Minister had falsely accused
their client of dishonesty.

Mr Ervin's lawyers, Terry Fisher and Co, said the Government was behaving
like a "star chamber" and its attempt to stifle free speech would be
challenged vigorously in the courts.

They rejected as "rubbish" Mr Howard's statement that Mr Ervin had slipped
into the country by hiding his identity and criminal conviction in the
United States for hijacking a plane to Cuba in 1969.

Mr Ervin, 50, spent last night in Brisbane's maximum security Sir Arthur
Gorrie Centre after the Acting Minister for Immigration, Senator Vanstone,
cancelled his visa, saying he was now an "unlawful non-citizen" being
detained prior to deportation.

She said the Government was "concerned that the integrity of Australia's
entry systems are not undermined by the entry or stay of people who are not
of good character".

Mr Terry Fisher, who also represents the Sinn Fein leader, Mr Gerry Adams,
who was refused an entry visa, said the cases were "totally separate but
the principle at stake here is free speech - who Australians can and can't
listen to".

"The reality is John Howard is deciding for us ... it's authoritarianism of
the worst kind," Mr Fisher said.

Mr Ervin had a verbal assurance from the Department of Immigration that he
would not be deported for 48 hours to allow an appeal to the Immigration
Review Tribunal, otherwise a Federal Court order would be sought.

Mr Howard intervened on Monday after Queensland MP Mrs Pauline Hanson
accused Mr Ervin of using his four-week lecture tour for a little-known
anarchist group, Angry People, to stir racial tension among Aborigines.

During a radio interview, Mr Howard said: "I have been advised by the
immigration authorities, let me be quite precise about this, that A) he
concealed his conviction for plane hijacking and B) he used a different
name from the one that was on our watch list, and that is how he got
through."

A spokesman for Terry Fisher and Co said Mr Ervin had used his own name,
the same one which appeared on his passport and under which he had been
convicted, on the Incoming Passenger Card. However, he had mistakenly
failed to fill out a question in "very small print" concerning convictions
because he had not seen it.