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culprits". AI sent a letter to the Minister in May 1975 asking whether investi- gations had been completed and seeking information about any further prison sentences which may have been imposed by the special courts.
Cambodia
On 17 April 1975, troops of the Cambodian People's Armed Forces of National Liberation entered the capital Phnom Penh after the government and armed forces of the Khmer Republic had announced their surrender. Ten days earlier, Amnesty International Secretary General Martin Ennals had sent a cable to Samdech (Prince) Norodom Sihanouk, Head of State and President of the National United Front of Cambodia (FUNK) expressing concern for civilians detained in areas of conflict.
At the time of writing (mid-May 1975) it remains hard to assess the human rights situation in Cambodia under FUNK's Royal Government of National Union (GRUNK). In the absence of any independent observers, allegations of mass executions and reprisals were impossible to substantiate, although the Research Department noted that a number of allegations were based on flimsy evidence and second-hand accounts.
On 16 May 1975, Martin Ennals sent a further cable to GRUNK through the office of its mission in Paris welcoming the spirit of “large national union without distinction of class, religious belief or political tendency" proclaimed by the recently convened Second National Congress of the Cambodian People. The cable then went on to reaffirm Al's opposition to the death penalty and urged GRUNK to show clemency towards former mem- bers of the old Phnom Penh government in a spirit of national reconciliation and concord.
The cable was sent in response to a GRUNK statement maintaining that the carrying out of the death sentence on Cambodia's seven "super-traitors" corresponded to “the sovereign right of the Cambodian people and nation”. At least four of the seven, including former President Lon Nol, had fled the country before the Liberation Army entered Phnom Penh. But two others, former Prime Ministers Long Boret and Sirik Matak, had stayed in the capital and were placed under detention.
People's Republic of China
A newly-appointed researcher has been examining in detail material gathered by the Research Department on political imprisonment and reform-through- labour in the People's Republic of China.
Although fragmentary, some information is now available on the law and judicial system in China. In particular, an interview between Gerd Ruge, Peking correspondent of the West German newspaper Die Welt, and members of the Kwangtung Institute of Law and Political Science, provided detailed informa- tion on the structure of the courts in the country and the application of penalties. (Mr Ruge was a founder member of Amnesty International's German Section and a former member of Amnesty International's International Executive Committee.)
As reported in the interview, which took place in May 1974, "the principles