W(B)L 51-7433
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LETTER
gistry
0.
SECURITY CLASSIFICATION
Top Secret.
Secret. Confidential. Restricted. Unclassifed.
PRIVACY MARKING
DRAT
To:-
The Editor,
"The Times.
In Confidence
Sir,
(
Type 1 +
From Front
Telephone No. & Ext.
Department
Mr. John Rear attempts to argue that the
case of Mr. Grey, detained in Peking, is
comparable to the cases of the thirty or so
detainees still in custody in Hong Kong, and
says that "like Mr. Grey, they have simply been
held".
On a point of fact Mr. Rear should know that
the reasons for Mr. Grey's detention, as stated
10. by the Chinese Foreign Ministry on 22 July 1967
were that "in view of the Hong Kong British
authorities' unreasonable persecution of the
correspondents of the Hong Kong branch of the
N.C.N.A. and other patriotic newsmen, the Chinese
Government has decided to limit the freedom of
movement of the British Reuters' correspondent
1
C
in Peking until further notice". Unlike the
treatment meted out to Mr. Grey, these "newsmen"
have all been charged, tried and sentenced in
the courts for offences against the law of Hong
Kong.
(
Furthermore I would like to point out a few
issimilarities between the cases of Mr. Grey
and of the detainees which Mr. Rear has omitted
to mention. First, not even the Chinese
Government, with considerable honesty, have ever suggested that Mr. Grey either misbehaved or did
anything to offend them. He has simply been 'detained. The detainees in Hong Kong, on the
other hand,
were