Court Upholds State Department Order Closing Down Office of PLO

WASHINGTON — A State Department order closing the Palestine Liberation Organization’s office here last year was upheld Friday by a federal appeals court that said the action didn’t unlawfully curb free speech.

The three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals here rejected claims that the closing of the Palestine Information Office violated the organization’s right to free speech, but it acknowledged the case raised serious constitutional issues.

However, the court concluded that the order by Secretary of State George P. Shultz didn’t “infringe upon any of those constitutionally protected rights.”

The State Department cited “U.S. concern over terrorism committed and supported by individuals and organizations affiliated with the PLO, and as an expression of our overall policy condemning terrorism” when it ordered the closing last fall.

The order was challenged in court, but last December, U.S. Dist. Judge Charles R. Richey upheld Shultz’s decision that the office functioned as a foreign mission of the PLO.