TNAG-0109-FCO40-145-Detainees-and-prisoners-following-19671968-disturbances-1968 — Page 127

W(B)L 51-7433

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NOTHING TO BE WRITTEN IN THIS MARGIN

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LETTER

gistry

0.

SECURITY CLASSIFICATION

Top Secret.

Secret. Confidential. Restricted. Unclassifed.

PRIVACY MARKING

DRAT

To:-

The Editor,

"The Times.

In Confidence

Sir,

(

Type 1 +

From Front

Telephone No. & Ext.

Department

Mr. John Rear attempts to argue that the

case of Mr. Grey, detained in Peking, is

comparable to the cases of the thirty or so

detainees still in custody in Hong Kong, and

says that "like Mr. Grey, they have simply been

held".

On a point of fact Mr. Rear should know that

the reasons for Mr. Grey's detention, as stated

10. by the Chinese Foreign Ministry on 22 July 1967

were that "in view of the Hong Kong British

authorities' unreasonable persecution of the

correspondents of the Hong Kong branch of the

N.C.N.A. and other patriotic newsmen, the Chinese

Government has decided to limit the freedom of

movement of the British Reuters' correspondent

1

C

in Peking until further notice". Unlike the

treatment meted out to Mr. Grey, these "newsmen"

have all been charged, tried and sentenced in

the courts for offences against the law of Hong

Kong.

(

Furthermore I would like to point out a few

issimilarities between the cases of Mr. Grey

and of the detainees which Mr. Rear has omitted

to mention. First, not even the Chinese

Government, with considerable honesty, have ever suggested that Mr. Grey either misbehaved or did

anything to offend them. He has simply been 'detained. The detainees in Hong Kong, on the

other hand,

were