COPY FOR REGISTRATION
SECRET
INWARD TELEGRAM
TO THE COMMONWEALTH OFFICE
Cypher
(The Secretary of State)
FROM HONG KONG (0.A.G.)
D. 10 August, 1967.
i)
37
PRIORITY SECRET
No. 1202
R. 10
LAST
0900Z.
REF.
"
NEA.
RAF
38
(2)
Addressed to Commonwealth Office.
Repeated
11
"Peking 502 and
"P.A. Singapore 294
(please pass PRIORITY to both).
(28)
Your telegram 1607:
Communist press.
Five out of the first six persons to be charged for offences under various ordinances, including on further consideration the Sedition Ordinance as well as Cap. 268, were arrested on 9 August. They include the publishers
and editors of the Hong Kong Evening News, Tin Fung Yat Po, and the Afternoon News and the Director of the company which prints all three newspapers. The sixth man has not yet been traced. The hearing of these cases in the magistrate's court is likely to begin about 21 August.
2. The reaction of the Communist press yesterday afternoon and this morning has been one of strong protest, although not as strong as might have been expected. Yesterday's Communist afternoon newspapers printed a "most stern warning" to the Hong Kong authorities. They demanded the immediate release of the five press men.
3. Today statements of protest have been issued in the name of various "struggle committees" and express "anger" at the arrests. The British authorities in Hong Kong are condemned for intensifying their "suppressive activities against patriotic journalists", and the Government is warned that they would "go to the gallows".if they did not stop the persecution and continued to play with fire. It includes the words "bow your heads in admission of your mistakes and accept the five demands put forward by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Chinese People's Government". "Struggle committees of various Communist newspapers are reported to have sent a telegram to press organisations in Peking asking them to expose to the world
crimes committed by the Fascist Hong Kong British Mtles".
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RECEIVED es
ARCHIVES No.63
114 AUG1967
HUAN/22
SECRET
140