ALLEGED ATROCITIES.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 330, 11 January 1937, Page 8

ALLEGED ATROCITIES.

A REIBN OF TERROR. , YUGOSLAVS' STORIES. , Yugoslavian immigrants in Western Australia want the League of Nations to investigate a “reign of terror” in their homeland. At a meeting at Perth stories were told of alleged atrocities. Newly-arrived immigrants who had fled from Yugoslavia, it was said, told of a Fascist terror of increasing ferocity, although many were reluctant to make their statements public owing to the fear that their relatives In Yugoslavia would be subject to reprisals. An outline of terrors practised upon political prisoners was given by one young man who recently fled from his country after undergoing a term of imprisonment. Minor Tortures. “I was myself a witness,” he said, “of what were regarded as minor tortures—the ripping off of a prisoner’s fingernails, burning of the soles ot the feet with red-hot irons, pulling of the hair out by the roots and floggings with butts of guns. "The Press of Europe and of the world does not hear details of the martyrdom of the people of Yugoslavia, and it is Imperative that democratic peoples should be brought to a realisation of the position. "Much of the Immigration of Yugoslavian people to-day is the immigration of a people endeavouring to escape from terror." The, following resolutions were carried unanimously, with instructions that they be sent to the Western Australian branch of the League of Nations Union to be forwarded to the League Union at Geneva —

Appeal to League. “That the League of Nations send a commission to investigate the political and social position in Yugoslavia. “That the League take Immediate steps to stop the terrorism in Yugoslavia, and make overtures so that full' amnesty be granted to political and military prisoners who have been so inhumanly treated." In a lelter to the State branch ot the League of Nations Union an otfei was made by Yugoslavian Immlgranti to submit evidence to lhe League on the subject of the protest.