The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith has called upon the Department of Justice to take action against two members of the Palestine Liberation Organization delegation for violating the restricted conditions under which they are permitted to stay in the U.S. The ADL urged that they be deported or, if they are out of the country before proceedings can be initiated, that they be barred from re-entry.
The two PLO delegates–Shafik Al-Hout and Abdul Jawad Saleh–hold visas which prohibit them from travelling outside a radius of 25 miles from Columbus Circle, New York City, unless they have special permission from the State Department. Their status is that of “non-immigrants in transit to the United Nations.”
In letters to Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and Attorney General Edward H. Levi. Arnold Forster, ADL’s general counsel and associate director, charged that Al-Hout and Saleh had received State Department permission to travel beyond the 25-mile limit provided that they did not engage in public political activity and that both had violated the stipulation.
The ADL official said that Al-Hout, who had obtained permission last month to attend a luncheon meeting of U.S. Senators in Washington, appeared on a television interview program while in the capital. Saleh, he said, had received permission to travel around the country to visit relatives in November, 1975 and had used the opportunity to make political speeches.
The State Department issued restricted visas to the PLO delegates in November, 1974, after ADL filed suit in federal court to bar the delegates from entering the U.S. or to restrict their travel.
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