Association for the Advancement of Civil Rights
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Association for the Advancement of Civil Rights
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|---|---|
| Leader |
Albert Risso Joshua Hassan Adolfo Canepa |
| Founded | 1942 |
| Dissolved | 1991 |
| Ideology |
Civil rights Liberalism Civic nationalism Populism |
| Political position | Centre left |
The Association for the Advancement of Civil Rights (AACR) was a political party in Gibraltar.
The AACR was established in 1942 by Joshua Hassan and Albert Risso, and sought to protect the interests of families evacuated during World War II. At the time, most of the Gibraltar population had been evacuated and only a small number of Gibraltarians remained on The Rock. Consequently, the colony was crowded with British soldiers, sailors and airmen. They received wide support from the Governor, General Mason-MacFarlane (later a Labour MP in the United Kingdom), who allowed them to fulfil the representative role that the Committee of the Exchange and the Commercial Library used to fill. The Governor also left the AACR with the responsibility of managing the leave scheme that allowed the Gibraltarians who remained on the Rock to visit their families in Britain. They also took a leading role in the repatriation of the Gibraltarian evacuees.
In 1945 the AACR became a political party, advocating improved pay and working conditions and the introduction of a democratic constitution. In August 1945, the first City Council elections since the war were held and the AACR won all the elected seats in the Council, with Hassan became its chairman. In the first elections to the new legislature in 1950, it won three of the five seats and was able to form a government. The party won successive elections in 1953 and 1956. The 1959 elections saw it win only three of the seven seats, but with the other four held by independents, it was able to continue in government. This was repeated after the 1964 elections, but the results of the 1969 elections (when it added "Gibraltar Labour Party" to its name) saw two new parties, the Integration with Britain Party and Isola Group win eight of the 15 seats between them, allowing them to form a government.
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