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leaving the armed forces. After having served eight months of her 18-month sentence, she was released on appeal in December 1974, when her sentence was reduced on technical grounds.
During 1974-75, 16 other pacifists were arrested under the Incitement to Disaffection Act. The literature which provoked their arrest was a revised version of the pamphlet Pat Arrowsmith had given out called "Some Information for Discontented Soldiers". None of the 16 was charged with giving the leaflet to soldiers, but 12 were charged with possession of the leaflet. More seriously, all 16, some of whom had never met before appearing in court, have now been charged with conspiracy to contravene the Incitement to Disaffection Act. Conviction carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. All were released on bail.
The uncommon but increasing use of the conspiracy laws in the United King- dom has been of concern to AI in the past year, since they contravene some fundamental principles of civil liberties and can be used as a political measure for putting pressure on those whose activities would not normally incur punishment.
The problems arising from the current situation in Northern Ireland are com- plicated by additional legislation in Great Britain: after a series of bomb explo- sions, the Prevention of Terrorism Act was passed in November 1974 and renewed in May 1975. This act gives the police the power to detain without warrant for up to five days, and exclude from Britain anyone-including UK citizens-suspected of involvement in terrorism. It even allows UK citizens to be excluded from a particular part of the United Kingdom.
In a letter to British Home Secretary Roy Jenkins, AI Deputy Secretary General Hans Ehrenstrale sought an assurance that, during the five-day detention period, individuals would have access to their lawyers. Referring to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which proscribes torture, Mr. Ehrenstrale said: "...it is unmistakably clear that the indispensable condition for violations of Article 5 to take place is the possibility of detaining individuals incommunicado”. In reply, the Home Office said that normal rules applied whereby a person in custody must be allowed to speak to his solicitor subject to “the usual proviso" that this will not hinder "the processes of investigation" or "the administration of justice".
In October 1974, Dr Alfred Heijder, Dutch member of Al's International Executive Committee and Professor of Law at Amsterdam University, went to Belfast to examine the working of the Emergency Provisions Act, under which those suspected of terrorist activities can be detained indefinitely or tried by special no-jury courts. He was also asked to report on conditions in the Maze Prison. Professor Heijder met Lord Donaldson, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, police and military officials and lawyers. During a visit to the Maze Prison, he spoke with detainees.
Professor Heijder recommended, inter alia, that arrested persons should be allowed prompt access to their solicitor, that machinery be established to examine complaints against the army and the police, that confessions should be accepted as evidence only if made in the presence of a solicitor, the abolition of detention without trial, and the immediate radical improvement of conditions in
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