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the Rakkhi Bahini.
Finally, the Secretary General inquired about the possibility of trial and release of some 2,000 prisoners AI estimates are awaiting trial on charges of collaboration with the Pakistan Army during the 1971 war.
It is not possible to give a precise estimate of the number of political prisoners now detained in Bangladesh. Following the Secretary General's discussions in Dacca, he received from the Bangladesh government a list of 383 prisoners now held under the Emergency Regulations and the Special Powers Act. However, AI believes the actual number of political prisoners is considerably higher.
Most political prisoners now held belong to the extreme leftwing groups or are members of the JSD, whose leaders have nearly all been arrested over the last year. Presently the number of adoption and investigation cases is very small, but AI has been in constant touch with the Bangladesh government about develop- ments affecting fundamental rights. Apart from the Secretary General's visit, the South Asia researcher also briefly visited Dacca in January and met with the Minister of Law.
Bhutan
On 1 June 1974, the day before the coronation of King Jigme Singye Wangchuk, the Bhutan government announced the discovery of a plot to assassinate the King. On 5 March 1974, 30 persons had been arrested, including the Bhutanese Deputy Home Minister, as well as 26 Tibetan residents in Bhutan. The arrests came at a time when the position of the some 3,500 Tibetan refugees in Bhutan had become increasingly precarious.
In a letter dated 18 November 1974, Amnesty International sought assurances from the King that the government would observe legal safeguards for those to be tried and that representations could be made in advance of those who might face the death penalty. AI representatives also discussed the trial and interrogation methods of these prisoners with the Bhutanese representative at the United Nations.
On 21 March 1975, Mumtaz Soysal, Turkish member of Al's International Executive Committee, presented a list of 23 prisoners to the Bhutanese represen- tative in New Delhi. In their discussions, Mr Soysal learned that the trial of the prisoners had already finished and, in spite of assurances made on 29 July 1974 that the trial proceedings would be made public, transcripts were not available. According to the Bhutanese representative, five or six people were released, and, whereas some prisoners were sentenced to death, the King had commuted their sentences to life imprisonment. At present, AI is continuing its investigations into their trial and prison conditions.
Brunei
In July 1974, Amnesty International completed a review of the cases of all 49 known detainees in Brunei. These cases had been under investigation by AI groups for almost a year. Since most of them had been detained without a trial of any description for over 11 years-the equivalent of a severe prison sentence-AI felt that the emphasis in these cases should properly lie on the lack of any trial procedures and on the apparent political motivation for the continued detention
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