Offer on Wish
CONFIDENTIAL
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IMMEDIATE HONG KONG TO COMMONWEALTH OFFICE
Telno. 1908
CONFIDENTIAL
23 December 1967
Addressed to Commonwealth Office telegram No. 1908 of 23
December
Repeated for information to Peking.
A member of the NCNA passed the following message to us on 22 December:
We are
'We are instructed by letter of the NČNA to ask you to convey the following request to the proper authority. preparing to send two representatives from the NCNA to pay a visit to our staff reporters now at Stanley some time around the New Year. The representatives will bring winter clothing and foodstuffs. We have also been asked by the schools, trade concerns, trade unions and other organisations to act on their behalf in asking for similar arrangements to be made for their representatives to visit the prisons, detention camps. Two representatives will represent each organisation and they can go on separate dates as arranged between you and us'. He asked for an early reply. He telephoned later to say that the second sentence should have read: 'we are preparing to send two official representatives from NCNA to pay a visit to our staff reporters as well as the reporters of other newspapers that are now at Stanley and at other prisons sometime around the New Year'.
2.
Our prison rules are as follows:
(a) no persons other than relations and friends shall be allowed to visit prisoners except by special authority; visits may be made once a month, but extra visits can be approved. Although there is no rule to this effect, there is a standing order that requests for an extra visit must originate with the prisoner.
(b) the rules provide that a prisoner may receive and send one letter every four weeks. In practice he may receive an unlimited number of letters. There would therefore be little difficulty for NCNA in prompting a prisoner to request an extra visit.
(c) there is no provision under the rules for clothing and foodstuffs to be presented to a prisoner.
3. It seems very likely that this is an attempt to get large quid pro quo from us in return for a concession to Grey.
that a propaganda
campaign about the prisoners was to be developed around the New Year. A great deal of play could be made of the "Comfort Missions" implied in the second half of the message; though the penultimate sentence might mean that the Communists are suggesting that the whole exercise could be phased over a period of time. In any event we cannot openly give preferential treatment to left wing prisoners since this would have an extremely bad effect on the morale and discipline of other prisoners.
THIS IS A COPY
THE ORIGINAL HAS BEEN RETAINED
IN THE DEPARTMENT UNDER SECTION
3 (4) OF THE PUBLIC RECORDS ACT 1958
HWA 14/32
CONFIDENTIAL
109
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