CONFIDENTIAL
303
31
Cypher/Cat A
1.MEDIATE PEKING TO FOREIGN OFFICE
Telegram No. 129
CONFIDENTIAL
14 February, 1968
Addressed to Foreign Office telegram No. 129 of
14 February,
Repeated for information to Hong Kong,
300,
Hong Kong telegram No. 185 to Commonwealth Office: Visits to Prisoners.
I have the following comments:
(a) The grounds for allowing formal visits to certain categories of prisoners and not to others are the simple ones that these are (or were two weeks ago) Chinese terms for access to Grey. They asked for formal visits to NCNA reporters and other " patriotic" journalists; the other visits which they asked for were not (repeat not) part of price for access to Grey. That is the only valid grounds for distinction between prisoners: but it is decisive. Attempts to discriminate between groups of přisoners on grounds that some are members of subsidized organisations and others are not will, I am afraid, only blur the issue.
(b)
As pointed out in my telegram No, 84 (paragraph 4) an added reason for allowing NCNA Hong Kong to cease such formal visits, without previous requests from the prisoners themselves, is that they have quasi-consular 277 status.
Hong Kong telegram No. 132 and telegram under reference seem to have confused the issue by referring to quasi-consular status of the prisoners. What matters is the status of persons making the visit, that provides parallel to any visit we would make to Grey who has no official status. It might be argued that if we concede this quasi-consular position of NCNA they might claim visits to any number of prisoners. But the fact is that, as explained in (a) above, they have equated Grey who is a journalist, with their own journalists and there is there- fore little danger of them trying to bring in new categories.
(၁)
I agree that by allowing such visits we would discriminate in favour of certain categories of political prisoners. But if we are to arrange an exchange for Grey such discrimination is inevitable. It is implicit in our offer to exchange Hsueh P'ing and it has been accepted in the Governor's offer to allow formal visits to NCNA reporters. The question now is simply "formal visits to how many",
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LAST
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CONFIDENTIAL
REF.
100
J04.106
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