The Hindu : Labour expels Galloway

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Oct 26, 2003

International

International

Labour expels Galloway

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON OCT. 25. Britain's ruling Labour Party was today accused of muzzling free speech after it expelled a senior MP for bringing the party into `disrepute' because of his outspoken opposition to the invasion of Iraq.

George Galloway, who had been an MP for 16 years and a Labour member for over three decades, was thrown out of the party after he refused to apologise for his reported remarks on an Arab TV channel which the leadership regarded as amounting to `inciting' British troops. Mr. Galloway denied the remarks attributed to him and called his expulsion a "political show trial''. "This was a politically motivated kangaroo court whose verdict had been written in advance...It was a travesty of justice,'' he said.

The party's national executive, however, insisted that the action had nothing to do with his criticism of the war. "This is not an issue of free speech. He was not expelled for his anti-war views, but for going unsolicited on an international television and inciting forces to cross the border and kill our brothers and sisters in the British army,'' the party chairman, Ian McCartney said.

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