TNAG-0497-FCO40-562-Deportation-of-foreign-nationals-from-Hong-Kong-1974 — Page 41

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Mr Male

PS/Lord Goronwy-Roberts

cc: HKIOD

PRISONS IN VIETNAM

Mr Dingiddy to

see

Lord Goronwy-Roberts has the treatment whic

1. Lord Goronwy-Roberts has asked about the treatment which? prisoners receive in North and South Vietnam.

2.

PA

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We have a number of sources of information on the controversial question of the number of prisoners in South Vietnamese jails, the most authoritative being a report of a thorough survey undertaken by the US Embassy in Saigon in the second half of 1973.

The survey, which was based on South Vietnamese records intended for internal use, concluded that the total prison population in July/August 1973, held for whatever reason, was about 35,000. (This gives a ratio of prisoners to total population identical to that in Northern Ireland). Our Embassy regard this figure as being a reasonable estimate. US Embassy also estimated that the total capacity of the South Vietnamese correction and detention systems is about 52,000, so the figure of 200,000 quoted by Miss Mottershead, and given wide circulation by Amnesty International, would seem to be a physical impossibility.

3.

The

Our information on prison conditions and the treatment of prisoners in South Vietnam, both from our Embassy and from secret sources, corroborate none of the accusations made by Miss Mottershead except with regard to crowding and some corruption at local levels. The allegation that large numbers of children are in prisons in South Vietnam has been levelled before, but our Embassy in Saigon believes that any children in jail must either be infants with their mothers, or older children who have been detained for such minor offences as vagrancy or theft. The action of the South Vietnamese Government in releasing unconditionally younger children among the 118 illegal emmigrants returned from Hong Kong would appear to be indicative of their attitude.

A number of independent obnorvers, including the previous Ambassador to Daigon, have visited South Vietnamese prisons and found conditions in the larger ones to be fairly good by Asian standards. Overcrowding is common however and it seems likely that smaller prisons might reveal worse conditions.

It is perhaps inevitable that some abuses should arise, especially in a country in a state of war, but these are thought to occur generally at the police interrogation (pre trial) stage.

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CONFIDENTIAL

KATT

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