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the Maze Prison, to bring them in line with the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.
His report was then submitted to a committee set up by the British govern- ment under Lord Gardiner's chairmanship to examine the Emergency Provisions Act and recommend possible changes. The Gardiner Report was published at the beginning of 1975, but AI found its recommendations lacking in certain vital aspects and direct approaches were therefore made by national sections to the British government through its embassies.
During the year AI groups worked for 13 adopted prisoners and investigated another 25 cases. These included five men who had been detained since August 1971, three of whom had suffered in-depth interrogation and ill-treatment after arrest.
After the ceasefire declared by the Provisional wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in December 1974, the number of releases sharply increased. All the women detainees, nine of them AI cases, were released by the end of April 1975. Six Al investigation cases and one adoption case remain. It is still extremely difficult to identify prisoners of conscience and emphasis has therefore been placed on legal procedures and prison conditions, rather than on the adop- tion of individual prisoners.
Yugoslavia
1
At present Amnesty International groups are working on more than 50 adop- tion and investigation cases in Yugoslavia and the Research Department has several dozen more under preliminary investigation. The department has written new background material on the country for Al groups whose work has been helped by the excellent efforts of the Austrian Section's Coordination Group on Yugoslavia. Since there are no published official statistics for the number of political prisoners in Yugoslavia, AI can only refer to one unpublished official source. This gives the total figure of persons charged in Yugoslavia in 1973 with crimes "against the State and Nation" as 1,849, of whom 672 were sentenced.
Since 1974, punishment of dissidents of different beliefs has markedly increased, reflecting the trend for tighter security in Yugoslavia. The effort to re-establish political and ideological discipline has been noticeable in all spheres of life.
In September 1974, a group of 32 "Cominformists" (pro-Soviet communists opposed to President Tito's independent policy) were jailed for a total of 200 years after a secret trial in Montenegro. Individual sentences ranged from 2 to 14 years. This was followed in March 1975 by the arrest of another allegedly pro-Soviet group in the Bosnian town of Tuzla.
In October 1974, Dr Djuro Djurović, aged 74 and ill, was sentenced in Bel- grade to 5 years imprisonment, and his co-defendant, Mrs Zagorka Kojić- Stojanović, received a sentence of 3 years' rigorous imprisonment, for their alleged connections with emigré organizations. Dr Djurović, who spent 17 years in prison after 1945 for his wartime association with the Cetniks (a rival resistance movement to Tito's partisans), appealed against the sentence, but the appeal hearing has not yet taken place. AI, which adopted Dr Djurović,