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20. 51 8 JUN 1973
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Reply at 253
Telephone: 01-580 0916
School of Oriental and African Studies University of London
Malet Street London WCIE 7HP
General Secretary: Greg Lee
Dear Dr. Gwen,
253
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Hong Kong e
GeralAgt
Style
Honorary President:Rt. Hon. Tony Benn MP
29.5.73
The members of the Labour Club have asked no to take up the issue of the
Bermuda executions with you again.
217 Your Political Adviser, David Stephen, rote to us (19/4/73) giving a not very
satisfactory reply to our letter of 4 April.Several points arise from his letter, however.
Ir. Stephen thought that the itish Government should not interfere in
a democratic decision of the Bermuda House of Assembly to retain the death penalty. However
we do not believe that a legislative elected by a racially discriminate electoral system,
where constituencies in black areas contain four times as many voters as those in white
residential areas, deserves to be called 'democratic',So although Fr.Stephen's statement
which spoke of "a body democratically elected by the entire adult population" is technically
I correct, it is also derisible.
He totally omitted to reply to our question concerning your statement in
the House of Commons on 5 December when you said you were prepared to review the question
of capital punishment in the Dependent Territories. Are we to take ir.Stephens silence to
you are not intending to review the issue 2
We also requested any further information on this topic, yet Fr.Stephen also
1 to inform us that a Royal Co.sssion has been set up, under the Chairmanship of
bord litt, to investigate the "troubled' in Bermuda last December.Will this Commission also
be repo ting and making recommendations, on the death penalty, as this was obviously a
bot core of the discont. n of the non- rropean population?