From The Minister of State
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London S.W.1
2021
26 February, 1969.
DESPATCHED BY
#TER OF STATE'S OFICE
197
I replied on 17 February to a Question which you asked about the practice of "locking-in" in Hong Kong prisons. In the course of a Supplementary Question you enquired whether it was the case that some prisoners had been confined in this manner for as long as eight months. undertook to look into this point.
I
I should make it clear that there is no practice of "locking-in" in the Hong Kong prisons; nor does the Colony's prisons legislation provide for it. Moreover I have been unable to discover in that legislation any basis for your reference to a maximum period of three months confinement.
over
As I said in my reply to your Question, I think you must be referring to Occasions when certain prisoners have refused to work and have of necessity been confined to their cells, except during exercise periods. Such occasions occurred during the eight month period November 1967 June 1968, and in such circumstances there was no alternative but to confine the prisoners in question to their cells. was open to the prisoners themselves at any time during that period, to bring their confinement to an end by agreeing to work and this they eventually decided to do.
It
Frank Allaun, Esq., M.P.
House of Commons,
LAST
REF.
NEX)
S.W.1.
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,
MCEIVER IN ARCHIVES
28 FEB 13
G.O. Roberts)