TNAG-0077-FCO40-113-Action-against-Communist-press-1967 — Page 26

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IMMEDIATE HONG KONG TO COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (D.T.D.)

Telno 1328

31 August 1967

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Addressed to Commonwealth Office telegram No. 1328 of 31 August

Repeated for information to POLAD Singapore and Washington

5%

Your telegram No. 1743: Communist Press.

Since my telegram No. 1202 the local Press situation has developed as follows:--

(1) The court case against three minor newspapers.

RECEIVED IN ore than one. ARCHIVES No. outcome of the first.

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(2)

The trial of the five accused (the sixth has not

yet been found and arrested) began on 21 August. The charges, now totalling 99, have been separated into three groups relating respectively to the three newspapers and in effect there will be three trials, although some accused feature in My telegram No. 1316 reports the Following the arrests the newspapers continued to publish in the same vein and on 17 August the Magistrate granted a Suspension Order against all three for the duration of the court proceedings. Next day a single page joint protest edition appeared but there has been no subsequent publication. The trials are expected to take up to ten more days. Accused are not represented.

Attitude of six other Communist newspapers,

The action against the lesser papers has had no

effect whatever on the rest; if anything, they are even more defiant. Encouraged by the Peking "ultimatum" and perhaps influenced by the belief that their own days are numbered, they have gone on pouring out a stream of seditious material, anti- British abuse, and false or distorted news. Although the bomb incident which killed two children shamed them into temporary silence, they are again encouraging and giving prominence to bombs. After the incident in which a popular radio announcer and his cousin were burned (and later died) after their car had been held up and set on fire by petrol bombs, the main Communist papers published with obvious approval a statement by a so-called "Underground Eliminating Traitors Commando Headquarters". This listed the announcer's "crimes" and justified his "punishment" as a warning to others.

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