TNAG-2604-FCO40-3792-Detention-of-Hong-Kong-residents-in-China-1992 — Page 90

HKD 015/1

RECE

WB CONFIDENTIAL

Foreign & Commonwealth

Office

HKD

12

London SWIA 2AH

18 March 1992

Jear Stepher,

M 19/3

Mr Morris

Thanks for

quick

Work!

я за

Call by Mr Stephen Ng and Mr Lau Shan-Ching

You asked for briefing for a call on you by

Mr Stephen Ng and Mr Lau Shan-Ching.

As part of his lecture tour, Mr Lau spoke on 9 March at a meeting in the School of Oriental and African Studies. He described a new policy of solitary confinement for political prisoners, established in 1985. Special accommodation within prisons had been constructed for them.

His fellow speaker on this occasion (a Mr Harry Wu, also a former political prisoner) described the practice of "forced job placement", where former inmates of prison camps are forced to remain in custody to continue work, theoretically as ordinary workers although they are not allowed to leave and their pay is less than half of that of a normal worker. Although it is true (as I said in my letter to you of 11 March) that, despite the Prime Minister's intervention, Mr Lau was obliged to serve every day of his 10 year sentence, he made a point on 9 March of attributing his release to international pressure. He said the guards had threatened him right up until the last minute with a "forced job placement" (amounting to an indefinite sentence) after his release.

You might like to ask him if he has any further news of the remaining Hong Kong detainees, Li Longqing (pron. "lee longching") Li Peicheng ("lee paychung") and Wu Jiguang ("woo jee gwang").

You could also bring him up to date on the Chinese response to the Prime Minister's list; saying that after prolonged and repeated Ministerial pressure, the Chinese have indicated which names fall into various categories eg "sentenced", "released", "never detained", and "not traced". We are pressing them for further details.

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CONFIDENTIAL

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