With Reprieve, IRA ‘Voice’ Scrambles to Be Heard

A voice of political opposition long missing from the airwaves in Britain’s supposedly United Kingdom is enjoying a brief reprieve from the 1988 broadcasting ban that silenced it.

The voice is that of Sinn Fein, the Northern Ireland party that the British government labels as the political wing of the outlawed Irish Republican Army. While their party is legal and supported by a significant minority in this troubled land, Sinn Fein politicians are depicted by London as apologists for terrorism who should not be allowed access to British television and radio.

The only exception to the broadcast ban on their voices is the three-week period before a general election. And with Britons going to the polls Thursday, Sinn Fein representatives have had a stormy return to the airwaves for the first time since the censorship law.

The party is running 14 candidates for Westminster seats--which, if they win, they are pledged not to occupy in protest over what they see as British occupation of Northern Ireland.

Protestant politicians here have either refused to join in any broadcasts that include Sinn Fein representatives or have stormed out midway through such programs. But perhaps the most interesting confrontations have been between Sinn Fein and its archrival for Catholic votes, the Social Democratic and Labor Party headed by John Hume.

Sinn Fein’s president, Gerry Adams, has been prominent in public phone-ins and in TV and radio debates with Hume. The two men have clashed, at times bitterly, about the role of the IRA in Northern Ireland’s “troubles.”

Hume, the member of British Parliament for the province’s second city, Londonderry, argues that IRA violence divides Northern Irish society and makes Protestant-Catholic reconciliation impossible. Adams, the current designated member of Parliament for west Belfast, holds that the IRA is a symptom of an “apartheid state” that will end only with negotiated British withdrawal.

Sinn Fein’s director of publicity, Richard McAuley, maintains that the broadcasting ban imposes a unique handicap on Sinn Fein’s campaign. “We’ve had to squeeze into three weeks what other political parties have enjoyed for over four years,” he said.

Critics here and elsewhere say the ban is irreconcilable with democratic principles. Some also argue that shutting off Sinn Fein’s right to be heard sends an unintended signal that its arguments might be persuasive.

“I could understand the British government introducing the ban if they had articulated a reasonable defense of it, but they never did,” said Simon Lee, a law professor at Queen’s University in Belfast and a media commentator. “They clearly were putting the mark of Cain on Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein, something akin to a public health warning like you would find on cigarettes. It was intended to be almost an asterisk on the screen saying, ‘This guy supports violence.’ But it’s just not necessary or desirable.”

Some commentators credit past media access for Sinn Fein’s vote-getting ability--it received 11.4% of the total vote in Northern Ireland and about one-third of the Catholic vote in 1987, the year before the broadcast ban. In the Republic of Ireland, where the party has long been barred from TV and radio, its candidates do far worse.

But others contend that heavy-handed measures such as censorship only bolster Sinn Fein’s support. Moreover, they argue, the party makes up in other areas for whatever it loses from the broadcast ban. It is aggressive in getting publicity in the print media, for example, which are unaffected by the ban.

Thursday’s election results may shed new light on the dispute.