EXPULSION FROM PARTY

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28259, 23 April 1957, Page 8

EXPULSION FROM PARTY

Communist Reporter Refused Readmission (N.Z. Press (Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, April 21. The British Communist Parts' today rejected an appeal by a former “Daily Worker” reporter to be readmitted to the party. The annual congress of the party, by a large majority approved the findings of the appeals committee, which, in secret session, had recommended rejection of the appeal against expulsion by Mr Peter Fryer, who resigned from the party’s newspaper after covering the Hungarian uprising last October. Grounds for rejecting Mr Fryer’s appeal included the fact that “he carried out a public and unprincipled attack on the party by articles in the capitalist press, the non-party press and on television,” and that he had expressed an “attitude of complete hostility towards the party leadership, the rank and file of the party, and the congress itself, describing it as a rigged congress and a phoney congress.” In a speech, which he distributed to delegates—he was not allowed to speak—Mr Fryer said it would grieve him to ‘‘stay silent about the sufferings and gallant resistance of the Hungarian workers.” He claimed he was expelled for using one of Britain’s major national daily newspapers ‘‘as a platform from which to declare my support for these (Hungarian) comrades and to tell the truth about the revolution they helped to prepare and lead.” Mr Fryer told reporters: “I remain a Communist. I will go on fighting for the transformation of the British Communist Party into a genuine Communist Party. My friends will continue the struggle inside the party.”