amnesty JANUARY 1979 Volume IX Number 1

international newsletter

President Ahmed Sékou TOURE ofGuinea has been challenged by Al toshow "living proof" that the formeradministrative Secretary General of theOrganization of African Unity (OAU),Telli DIALLO, is still alive.

It is now widely reported that TelliDiallo may have died in detention sincehis arrest in July 1976. He has neverbeen brought before an independentcourt and the Guinean authorities havenever made public any sentence passedon him.

At a news conference in Guinea'scapital, Conakry, on Sunday 26November 1978, President SékouTouré is reported to have said: "TelliDiallo has been sentenced, therefore heis no longer under my authority. Allthose who have been sentenced to deathare dead."

If Telli Diallo has not been formallyexecuted, he may have died as aresult of being deprived of food andwater—a fate which many other politi-cal prisoners in Guinea have suffered.

fundamental freedoms"."Human rights cannot be left to

governments, legislators and jurists,"said Ms Wickremasinghe. "They are theconcern and the responsibility of theman and woman in the street, of thelabourer, the farmer, the office clerk,the student. Every name on everypetition counts"El

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT 1978

The latest annual survey of poli-tical imprisonment, torture andexecution throughout the worldcompiled by Amnesty Interna-tional will be published this yearon 1 February 1979.

During the same news conferencePresident Sékou Touré criticized Al and

described the organization as "trash"("tine ordure-).

After refusing to disclose how manypolitical prisoners his government washolding, the President attacked Alstatements about violations of humanrights in Guinea and challenged theorganization's impartiality and politicalindependence. He said its policies werebeing dictated by "powers who wish toisolate Guinea".

It is not the first time that govern-ments have accused Al of politicalbias but, at the same time, thosegovernments have been unwilling orunable to deny the facts about humanrights violations cited by AI.

In its Guinea Briefing Paperpublish-

ed in June 1978, Al expressed concernat the use of torture in Guinea. Judicialproceedings affecting political prisonersin the country fall far short of recog-nized international standards. Prisonlife is reported to be extremely harsh.

Political killings,arrests continuein NicaraguaPolitical killings, torture andarbitrary detentions are still beingcarried out by Nicaragua's NationalGuard after the September 1978nationwide insurrection.

A list of 519 Nicaraguan citizensknown to be detained by the gov-ernment was made public by AlSecretary General Martin ENNALSon 20 November-1978 during avisit to San José, Costa Rica.

"We are particularly concerned aboutthe murder by National Guard troopsof refugees returning from neighbouringHonduras," he said. "Recent interviewsin refugees camps in Honduras conduct-ed by Amnesty International haveconfirmed that numerous refugees havebeen detained and shot in cold bloodupon returning to their homes in Esteliand Chinandega in late October."

More than 10,000 destitute Nicara-guan refugees have been granted asylumand material assistance in Honduras.Most are cared for in tent villages in thesouthern province of Choluteca, wherethe Honduran government has grantedfull administrative authority to theHonduran Red Cross.

"We would like to praise the Hondu-ran Red Cross for their tremendousefforts which have enabled theserefugees to avoid the fate of arbitrarydetention and summary execution towhich so many of their fellow citizenshave been subjected," Ennals said.(See story page 4) 0

According to Al there were severalthousand political prisoners held inGuinea's prisons in June 1978 (July1978 Newsletter). Since then there havebeen reports from Conakry of therelease of more than 1,000 politicalprisoners. However, the most prominentprisoners have not been set free and AIhas been able to confirm the release ofonly a small proportion of the totalnumber of prisoners reported to havebeen released. Al welcomes the news of

the releases but urges all those concernedwith human rights in Guinea to continueto press for the release of all political

detainees0

UN Human Rights Prize'LET THERE BE NO MISTAKE ..

"Let there be no mistake about who is being honoured here today,"said Suriya WICKREMASINGHE of A/'s International ExecutiveCommittee on accepting the 1978 UN Human Rights Prize at a specialceremony in the United Nations on 11 December 1978.

"It is everyone who has everput their name on the bottom ofan AI appeal. It is everyone whohas ever written a letter asking forthe release of a prisoner of con-science. It is everyone who hasever stood in a vigil mourning thedeath of a political prisoner.

"It is everyone who has ever handedout leaflets, stuffed envelopes, lickedstamps, kept membership lists, done theaccounts and helped out behind thescenes.. .."

The UN Prize, which AI was awardedalong with seven other recipients, recog-nized the organization's "outstandingcontribution to the promotion andprotection of human rights and

President of Guinea asked for'living proof' that former OAUofficial is still alive

2JANUARY 1979

CzechoslovakiaCharter 77 spokesman in pre-trial detentionA Czech professor of psychology whosuffers from a serious spinal disease isstill waiting for court proceedings tobegin after being held in pre-trialdetention on political charges fornearly three months.

Professor Jaroslav SABATA, aspokesman for Charter 77, the humanrights movement founded in Czechoslo-vakia in January 1977, was arrested on1 October 1978 as Czech and Polishhuman rights activists attempted tomeet at the border of the two countries.He is charged under articles 155 and156 of the Czechoslovak penal codewith "grossly insulting and assaultinga public functionary".

At the time of his arrest, Dr Sabatawas reported to have been beatenbadly by the police and witnesses saythey saw his face covered in blood.

Professor Sabata became prominentduring the 1968 "Prague Spring" as thedriving force for liberalization in theSouth Moravia (Brno) region. An ableorganizer, speaker and political leader,he was expelled from the Czecho-slovak Communist Party and dismissedfrom his post as university lecturer afterthe occupation of the country by thearmed forces of five Warsaw Pact States.

He was arrested in November 1971and sentenced to 61/2 years in prisonfor "subversion". After being releasedin 1977 on probation, he signed theCharter 77 manifesto and eventuallybecame one of the spokesmen for themovement. His three children were alsoimprisoned in the early 1970s. All wereadopted by AI as prisoners of conscience,and Dr Sabata has again been adoptedfollowing this latest arrest.

Political prisoners sentencedSix other Czech citizens have beenrecently sentenced for exercising theirright to freedom of expression.

Jiri CHMEL, a 24-year-old geophysicistwas sentenced in October 1978 to 18months' imprisonment for allowingseveral people to sign Charter 77 in hisflat. He was also accused of playing atape recorded text of Charter 77 andcompositions of non-conformist musicalgroups in a public place. The latter

Prisoner Releases and CasesThe International Secretariatlearned in November of therelease of 108 prisoners underadoption or investigation andtook up 234 new cases.

charge was subsequently withdrawn bythe Prosecutor at the trial as not proven.

Frantisek HRABAL, a worker, andJiri VOLE, a driver, both aged 26, weresentenced on 26 October by the PragueMunicipal court to 3 years each for sub-version. They were accused of dissemin-ating Charter 77 documents and other"anti-State, anti-party and anti-socialtexts".

Petr CIBULK A, aged 28, a worker,Libor CHLOUPEK, aged 23, a librarian,and Petr POSPICHAL, aged 19, aprinter's apprentice (September andNovember 1978 Newsletters), were con-victed by the Brno Municipal Court oncharges of organizing private perform-ances of musical and other non-confor-mist groups and of duplicating anddisseminating typewritten and taperecorded anti-state writings.

Petr Cibulka received 2 years',Libor Chloupek received 20 months'and Petr Pospichal received 11months' imprisonment0

STOP PR ESSKENYA RELEASES DETAINEESKenyan writer, Ngugi wa Thiong'ofour parliamentarians and allother detainees were freed on thecountry's Independence Day,12 December 1978.

A political prisoner in El Salvador whowas fed only twice a week for 10months eventually lost so much weightthat he was able to squeeze through thebars of his tiny prison cell and escape.

Reynaldo CRUZ MENJIVAR, apeasant organizer for the SalvadoreanChristian Democratic Party, whoescaped from incommunicado detentionin late September 1978, has now toldhis story after being given asylum bythe Venezuelan embassy in the capital,San Salvador.

Until his escape from prison on 29September 1978, Reynaldo CruzMenjivar had "disappeared". He hadbeen arrested on 21 December 1977at the home of his brother by membersof the Policia de Hacienda (TreasuryPolice)—one of El Salvador's mainsecurity forces. Although his brotherwas a witness to the arrest, the govern-ment refused to acknowledge it.

After 10 months in incommunicadodetention, Reynaldo Cruz escaped into

IsraelRecent arrestsin the West BankA number of arrests have recentlytaken place in the West Bank whichare reportedly designed to punishindividuals for their politicalattitudes toward the Camp Davidaccords.

On 5 December 1978, Al wrote tothe new Attorney General of Israel,Professor Itzchak ZAMIR, expressingconcern at the arrests. The A/ lettercited the cases of 14 people, includingseveral students and teachers from BirZeit University and a trade unionistwho were arrested between 23 and 26November 1978 in the,vicinity ofRamallah.

The interrogations of these prisonershave apparently not focused on accusa-tions of illegal acts as is usually the case,but on the political beliefs of thedetainees and on their opposition to theproposed peace agreement betweenEgypt and Israel. Several of the detain-ees claim to have been severely mal-treated while in custody. Al has receiveda report in which their lawyer atteststo the injuries allegedly sustained dur-ing interrogation0

a tropical rainstorm after squeezingthrough the bars of his prison cell.His weight had dropped to 31.5 kilo-grams. He escaped wearing only hisunderpants, his body scarred by torture.

He said he had been tortured afterhis arrest and then held continuously ina dark and filthy cell which was sosmall that he was unable to stand up init. Most of the time he was kept inmanacles.

He was able to communicate withtwo other prisoners, one of whom wasseriously ill and who he believes mayhave died in his cell a few days beforethe escape.

The other prisoner, Cecilio RAMIREZ,is reportedly still detained in the SanSalvador headquarters of the Policiade Hacienda, possibly in secret under-ground cells below the outdoor basket-ball court in the Treasury Policecomplex.

Al has launched an urgent action onbehalf of Cecilio Ramirez and all otherprisoners held in the police cells!:

El SalvadorStarved prisoner escapes through prison bars

JANUARY 1979 3

John CHIRISA, RhodesiaJohn CHIRISA was served with anindefinite detention order immediatelyafter he had been acquitted of politicalcharges by a Special Court in Salisburyin May 1977.

He had been accused under the Lawand Order (Maintenance) Act withrecruiting young blacks to leave thecountry for training as nationalistguerrillas, an offence which has carrieda mandatory death penalty in Rhodesiasince November 1974.

Rhodesian authorities have made ita common practice to issue detentionorders against nationalist supporterswho have been charged with politicaloffences but who have been subsequent-ly acquitted or discharged before theircase has come to court. In Chirisa'scase, as in others, no specific reasonswere given by the Minister for Law andOrder for the imposition of the deten-tion order.

Chirisa, 49, the former NationalOrganizing Secretary of the internalwing of the Zimbabwe African People'sUnion (ZAPU), led by Joshua Nkomo,has been detained at least four timessince 1964 and has spent a total ofsome eight years in detention withouttrial. His most recent period of deten-tion was from mid-1973 until January1976, when he was released to join innegotiations for a settlement in Rhodesiabetween ZAPU and Prime Minister IanSmith. These negotiations were brokenoff two months later.

It was expected that Chirisa wouldbe freed as a result of the internalsettlement agreement reached in Salis-bury on 3 March 1978. It was generallyunderstood that the release of alldetainees was one of the conditions ofthe agreement. However, at least 100political detainees—including Chirisa—have not been freed.

He is now held at Wha Wha detentionprison under the provisions of theEmergency Powers Regulations.

Please send courteously wordedappeals asking for John Chirisa'simmediate release, to each of thefollowing: Prime Minister Ian Smith,Bishop Abel Muzorewa, ReverendNdabaningi Sithole, Chief JeremiahChirau, Office of the ExecutiveCouncil, P/Bag 7700, Causeway,Salisbury, Rhodesia.

Mykhaylo OSADCHY,Soviet UnionMykhaylo OSADCHY is a Ukrainianjournalist, poet and literary critic. Hehas been a senior lecturer in journalismat Lvov University and a member ofthe Communist Party of the SovietUnion.

The 42-year-old writer wasarrested in January 1972 on charges of"anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda"when police searched his flat and seizedsamizdat writings. Eight months laterhe was sentenced in a closed trial to7 years in a corrective labour colonyand 3 years' internal exile.

This is Osadchy's second imprison-ment. In 1966 he was sentenced to 2years in a corrective labour colony afterbeing convicted of "anti-Soviet agitationand propaganda" for expressing "nation-alist" sentiments.

Shortly before his second arrest in1972 he signed a number of statementsprotesting against the arrest of prom-inent Ukrainian intellectuals. At thesame time his book Cataract,whichrecounts his experience in prison, wasbeing widely circulated in samizdatform in the Soviet Union.

Osadchy is completing the sixthyear of his sentence in the MordovianASSR in a special regime correctivelabour colony—the most rigorous cat-egory of labour camp—and he stillfaces 3 years' exile in a remote region ofthe USSR.

Please write courteously wordedletters appealing for the immediate

release of Mykhaylo Osadchy, to:Moskva, Kreml, Generalnomu Sekre-taryu TsK KPSS, i PredsedatelyuPrezidiuma Verkhovnogo, L.I. Brezh-nevu; and to: Moskva, Pushkinskayaul. 15a, Prokuratura SSSR, General-nomu Prokuroru R.A. Rudenko.

Ciro MOLINA, NicaraguaCiro MOLINA, a 30-year-old poet andauthor of La Puerta Unica (The OnlyDoor), is one of Nicaragua's leadingliterary figures. He has been a poliovictim since the age of two and has beenconfined to a wheelchair all his life.

During the general insurrection inNicaragua in September 1978, CiroMolina was arrested by the NationalGuard while visiting relatives in Quilaliin Nueva Segovia district. On 25 Sept-ember, 16 days after his arrest, he wastransferred to the National Guard com-mand post in his honie town of Esteli.He was bound and forced to lie on thefloor of a jeep throughout the 64 kilo-meter journey, despite the fact that heis a cripple.

He is now being held without chargein the National Guard command postat Esteli. Although he is suffering con-siderable pains in his back due to polio,he has been refused medical treatment.

The arrest of Ciro Molina is one ofmore than 500 politically-motivatedarrests reported during the September1978 insurrection in Nicaragua. Sincethen there have been reports of morethan 1,000 arrests and 5,000 deaths(December 1978 CAT Bulletin).

Ciro Molina's studio was demolishedwhen National Guard troops enteredEsteli and all his unpublished manu-scripts since 1973, including essays,poems and plays, were completelydestroyed.

Please send courteously wordedletters requesting medical treatment andthe immediate release of Ciro Molina, to:Su Excelencia Presidente AnastasioSomoza Debayle, Palacio Presidencial,Managua, Nicaragua.

A copy of your letter may be sent to:w. Director, Diario El Nacional,Caracas, Venezuela.

Human Rights and Peaceare linkedOn 18 November 1978, AI wrote toPrime Minister Menahem BEGIN ofIsrael and to President Anwar SADATof Egypt, who share the 1978 NobelPeace Prize, urging that they eachact to end violations of human rightsin their countries.

Al called on the two leaders to re-affirm the fundamental link betweenpeace and human rights0

Campaign for Prisonersof the Month

Each of the people whose story is told below is a prisoner of conscience.Each has been arrested because of his or her religious or political beliefs,colour, sex, ethnic origin or language. None has used or advocatedviolence. Their continuing detention is a violation of the UnitedNations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. International appealscan help to secure the release of these prisoners or to improve theirdetention conditions. In the interest of the prisoners, letters to theauthorities should be worded carefully and courteously. You shouldstress that your concern for human rights is not in any way politicallypartisan. In no circumstances should communications be sent to theprisoner.

4

NicaraguaRefugees afraidto return homeMost of the Nicaraguan refugees whoare now camped outside the countryhave said they would not return totheir homes under the present circum-stances.

In November, Al conducted a seriesof interviews among refugees in neigh-bouring Honduras. The refugees citedinstances of the murder of theirfriends or acquaintances who had goneback to Nicaragua in recent weeks.

Twenty-two year old Alcides DURANLANDERO was shot dead when heshowed his Honduran governmentrefugee credentials to Nicaraguantroops on 28 October 1978. Two bro-thers, Horacio and Julio GONZALEZ,

Soviet Helsinki monitor RobertNAZARYAN has been convicted of"anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda".On 2 December 1978 the 30-year-oldphysicist was sentenced to 5 years ina corrective labour colony to be follow-ed by 2 years' internal exile. Nazaryan,who is also a deacon of the ArmenianApostolic Church, was a foundingmember of the Armenian Helsinki mon-itoring group. He was arrested on 24December 1977 and spent almost one

The death in detention of THICH ThienMinh, one of the leaders of the UnifiedBuddhist Church (UBC) has beenreported from the Socialist Republic ofVietnam.

The immediate cause of his death on17 October 1978 is not known, al-though he suffered from ill health dueto injuries sustained in an unsuccessfulattempt on his life in 1966.

His health deteriorated further after1969, when he was sentenced to 15years' hard labour under the administra-tion of NGUYEN Van Thieu for alleged"defamation of the military". Followinginternational protests, he was releasedafter eight months' detention.

In April 1978 he was arrested again,this time by the new government.Although it is not clear on what chargeshe was arrested, he had not been triedat the time of his death.

who had returned to Esteli to collecttheir social security payments had beendetained and murdered three daysearlier.

Seventy-five per cent of the refugeesin Honduras are under the age of 20;many are young women alone withsmall children. There are now over 300children under six years of age inCampo Luna in Choluteca, the largesttent village which holds 1,200 residents.Ten babies were born there in the firstweek of November 1978.

Refugee organizations estimate thatup to 27,000 Nicaraguans have enteredHonduras since the insurrection beganin September 1978, although mosthave not yet requested refugee statusor special assistance. Similarly, over30,000 have entered Costa Rica, wherethe government is working for theirwelfare in cooperation with severalcharitable institutionsIll

year in pre-trial detention. Anothermember of the Armenian Helsinki moni-toring group, Shagen ARUTUNYAN,was sentenced in January 1978 to 3years' imprisonment for allegedly"resisting a policeman or people'sguard".• Two new issues of A Chronicle ofCurrent Events have now been pub-lished in English. Numbers 48 and 49,cover the period from 30 November1977 to 14 May 19780

Thich Thien Minh had been involvedin the planning of several Buddhistinitiatives to promote peace duringthe 1960s and early 1970s. The UBCopposed the presence of American andother foreign troops in South Vietnamand repeatedly pressed for a ceasefireand the ultimate creation of a re-unified and non-aligned Vietnam.

Since the end of the war in April1975 and the establishment of theSocialist Republic of Vietnam, severalprominent members of the UBC havebeen arrested; their cases have beentaken up for adoption by Al.

Al has written to Prime MinisterPHAM Van Dong, to express graveconcern over reports of the death indetention of Thich Thien Minh, andover reports that two of the otherdetained Buddhist monks are seriouslyillO

JANUARY 1979

Tanz aniaMinisters meetAI missionProgress has been made towards greaterrespect for human rights in Tanzaniawhere, for several years, AI has beenactively concerned about political im-prisonment, detention without trial,torture and harsh prison conditions.

Late last year an Al mission, ledby Secretary General Martin ENNALS,visited Tanzania for talks with thegovernment.

Although the mission was unableto meet President Julius NYEREREor Vice President Aboud JUMBE, intalks with other cabinet ministersand government officials in Dar esSalaam and Zanzibar, the Al delegateswelcomed recent developments:

— most Al-adopted prisoners of con-science and many'others detained onthe mainland have been released;

death sentences have been commutedand prison terms reduced for thoseconvicted in the 1973 Zanzibartreason trial;

torture on mainland Tanzaniaappears to have been eliminated as aresult of the prosecution of twosecurity officers (September 1978CAT Bulletin).

The AI mission appealed for therelease of the only known prisoner ofconscience on the mainland—GrayMATTAKA, who has been held almostcontinuously since 1969—and 14 polit-ical prisoners on Zanzibar.

An estimated 100 to 200 people areheld under the Preventive DetentionAct. All are alleged criminal offenders,but AI is investigating cases wheretorture has been alleged.

The Al mission presented the govern-ment with accounts of torture, ill-treatment and harsh prison conditionsreported by released detainees. Inade-quate medical attention is provided inprison and procedures for reviewingdetention orders are unsatisfactory.

Senior government officials under-took to investigate these complaints,including cases such as that of DunstanCHIPAK A who was sentenced in 1970to life imprisonment for treason andwho is reportedly being kept constantlyin leg-chains.

Al has now submitted detailed rec-ommendations to President Nyerere andVice President Jumbe on the basis of themission's findingsEl

USSRAnother Helsinki monitor sentenced

VietnamBuddhist monk 'dies in detention'

JANUARY 1979 5After several years of intensive research, AI has published a major report, Political Imprisonment in thePeople's Republic of China (December 1978 Newsletter). The report outlines the country's constitutional,legal and penal systems under which political dissenters can be detained, interrogated, tried and punishedwithout access to fair trials and without safeguards against maltreatment during detention. The followingarticle sketches developments in the country since completion of the Al report in mid-1978.

Wall posters in Peking call for human rights

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"Official government statements and Chinese laws confirm the patterns of politicalimprisonment described by former prisoners," said Thomas Hammarberg of ArsInternational Executive Committee at the international news conference whichlaunched Al's report. "We are not dealing with a situation where the governmentsays one thing and the prisoners say another," he added.

Wall posters displayed in thestreets of Peking at the end ofNovember 1978 demanded thathuman rights be respected andthat free debate be allowed in thePeople's Republic of China.

The posters started appearingin the capital a few days after itwas officially announced thatpeople arrested in the 1976 dem-onstrations in Peking's Tienan-men Square had been "fullyrehabilitated" and "exoneratedas revolutionaries". In April 1976the demonstrations had beenstigmatized as "a counter-revolutionary incident".

A report by the New China NewsAgency on 18 November 1978 statedthat none of the "more than 300cadres and other people arrested" inthe demonstrations was a "counter-revolutionary". This judgement follow-ed a "re-examination of the wholecase" started by Peking police in May1978.

It is not known whether the figureof "more than 300" referred only topeople whose cases were "re-examined'recently. Some of the arrested demon-strators are reported to have beenreleased earlier, in 1977 and early 1978According to unconfirmed reports,more than a thousand people had beenarrested in connection with thedemonstrations.

Arrests are continuing

At an international news conferencein London, England, on 27 November1978, Al said it welcomed therecent announcements of releasesand rehabilitations of prisoners inChina. The news conference launchedthe AI publication Political Imprison-ment in the People's Republic ofChina (December 1978 Newsletter).

While official statements indicatethat efforts are being made to correctpast miscarriages of justice, the lawsproviding for political imprisonmentare still in force. Arrests on politicalgrounds and executions of politicaloffenders have continued during thepast year. Al is still waiting to hear

from the Chinese government aboutprisoners of conscience who are believedto be still imprisoned, and it hopes todiscuss its report with the Chineseauthorities.

Urgent revisionof laws

Chinese officials have made recent state-ments concerning possible reforms inthe country's legal system. Accordingto a report in the People's Daily of 29October 1978, the Minister of PublicSecurity (police), Chao Tsang-pi, statedin October that "more than 30 categor-ies of existing laws and statutes need tobe urgently revised" and that there wasalso a need to draft a criminal code, acivil code and a code of criminalprocedures.

The Minister said that the drafting ofthe codes should be done by "a specialunit .. . organized by the judicial andpublic security [police] group". He saidthat letters from people in variouslocalities have revealed that cadres inmany areas "have violated laws, wanton-ly abused their powers, bullied andoppressed the masses and encroachedupon people's rights while enforcinglaws."

"They have even wantonly arrestedpeople and obtained confessions fromthem by torture or by hanging them up

to beat them", he said.In a statement made earlier, the

President of China's Supreme Court,Chiang Hua, also said that "the verdictsagainst many people who were falselyor unfairly accused have not yet beenreversed or redressed."

Rehabilitations and releases

Measures have been taken recently to"rehabilitate" some categories ofpeople who had been imprisoned, mal-treated or deprived of their rights. Onesuch step concerns the rehabilitation ofpeople who had been labelled as "right-ists" in 1957 for voicing opinions criticalof the Chinese Communist Party policy.The People's Daily of 15 November1978 confirmed that a decision hadbeen adopted by the Party Central Com-mittee in April 1978 to remove the"rightist label of all the remainingrightists".

The newspaper specified that "fivegroups, the majority of the rightists, hadtheir rightist labels removed between1959 and 1964".

More than 300,000 people arebelieved to have been ostracized as"rightists" in 1957. Foreign corres-pondents in Peking estimated in spring1978 that about 100,000 people werestill classified as such. The People's

6

Daily of 15 November 1978 statedthat "after 21 years of prolonged educ-ation and remoulding, the over-whelming majority of rightists havebeen transformed".

Among the cases of "rightists" knownto Al is a girl named Lin Xiling—a 20-year-old student in Peking at the timeof her arrest in 1957—who is said tohave been sentenced to 20 years'imprisonment and deprivation of hercivil and political rights for life. Sofar, Al's appeals on her behalf have notbeen answered by the Chineseauthorities.

Another announcement was madein mid-November 1978 concerning therelease of 34 Tibetan prisoners—mostof them high-level officials of theformer Tibetan government—who havebeen granted pardon. Al has wel-comed these releases, but knows ofother Tibetan prisoners on whosebehalf it has addressed inquiries to theChinese government in the past yearwithout receiving any reply. One ofthem is Chamba Lobsang, a Tibetanmonk who was sentenced to lifeimprisonment during a public meetingin 1960 on accusations of "exploitingthe masses in the name of religion"and who is believed to be stillimprisoned.

Long-termprisoners

AI is also concerned about the fateof prisoners arrested more than 20years ago. The former RomanCatholic Bishop of Shanghai, KungPing-mei, was arrested in 1955 andsentenced to life imprisonment in 1960on charges of "leading a counter-revolutionary clique". Bishop Kung isreported to have been held in solitaryconfinement for several years after hisarrest and prevented from seeing hisfamily ever since. Now over 70 years

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Official policy on the handling of offendersin China states: "confession deserves leni-ency, resistance deserves severity". InFebruary 1978, He Chunshu, the author ofa "counter-revolu tionary" leaflet, "obstinat-ely refused to admit his crime". Accordingto the court notice, "the wrath of thepeople was very great" and he wasimmediately executed.

old, he is.believed to be still indetention.

In November 1978, Al launched apublic appeal for the release of BishopKung on the occasion of the 30thAnniversary of the Universal Declara-tion of Human Rights. Al made asimilar appeal on behalf of Hu Feng,a well-known Chinese writer who wasalso arrested in 1955 on charges ofbeing a "counter-revolutionary". HuFeng was in fact arrested forcriticizing the rigid standards imposedon literary creation by the Partyauthorities in charge of literature andart. Little information has beenavailable about him recently. If alive heis now 75 years old.

JANUARY 1979

November 1978, inquiring about the fateof five former Red Guards, held for"criminal and counter-revolutionary"activities during the Cultural Revolution,who have been sentenced recently inPeking. Specific sentences have not beenannounced, but reports in the inter-national press said it was feared thatthey might have been executed. The fiveare Nieh Yuan-tze, Kuai Ta-fu, Han Ai-ching, Tan Hou-lan and Wang Ta-pin. Inthe cable to Premier Hua Kuo-feng, AIsaid that it opposes the death penaltyon humanitarian grounds and urged thattheir sentences be commuted if theyhave been sentenced to death. It alsoasked that the sentences passed on thembe made public.

In a letter sent to Premier Hua Kuo-feng on 2 November 1978, Al present-ed recommendations based on theobservations made in hs report onpolitical imprisonment in the People'sRepublic of China, urging the govern-ment to:

- repeal all laws prescribing adminis-trative or criminal punishments forthe non-violent expression ofbeliefs;

ensure that all persons currently det-ained on political grounds are grantedfair and open trials with full rights todefence;

— abolish the death penalty;

— establish formal safeguards to pre-vent the torture or maltreatment ofprisoners;

— apply internationally-recognizedstandards for the protection ofhuman rights0

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Al cabled Premier Hua Kuo-feng on 17

Eyewitnesses challenge official story

Uniguayans abducted in BrazilFour Uruguayans including two smallchildren are reported to have been kid-napped from southern Brazil and thenillegally transferred across the borderto Uruguay.

On 25 November 1978 the Uruguay-an armed forces said the two adults,Universindo Rodriguez DIAZ andLilian CELIBERTI de Casariego, were"apprehended crossing into Uruguayanterritory with subversive material".They said the two children, aged threeand eight, had been given into the careof their grandparents in Uruguay'scapital, Montevideo.

But two Brazilian journalists,working for the weekly political mag-azine Veja, say they saw LilianCeliberti being arrested in her homein POrto Alegre, Brazil, eight daysbefore the Uruguayan armed forces'statement. The two journalists madetheir disclosure after learning of theUruguayan official version of the event.

The journalists said they visited theCeliberti home after their magazinereceived an anonymous call warningthem of a possible kidnap attempt.

Eight-year-old Camilo CELIBERTI,interviewed by Brazilian journalists on

30 November 1978 at his grandparents'home in Montevideo, said he and theother three had been first held inFederal Police headquarters in POrtoAlegre. He and his three-year-old sister,Francesca, had then been driven toMontevideo and handed over twoweeks later to the grandparents.

A Brazilian lawyer working on thecase says the adults were flown byUruguayan and Brazilian security agentsto S5o Paulo and then to Montevideo.

The kidnapping has been publiclydenounced by the President of theBrazilian Bishops' ConferenceD

JANUARY 1979 7

amnesty international

- campaign for the abolition of torture

USSRBoris Evdokimov — victimFormer journalist Boris EVDOKIMOVwho was the subject of an AI appeal inFebruary 1978, is still confined to aspecial psychiatric hospital in the SovietUnion where, according to the latestreports, at least until recently he hascontinued to receive "treatment" withpowerful neuroleptic drugs.

Evdokimov, now 55 years old, wasarrested in Leningrad in October 1972on charges of "anti-Soviet agitation andpropaganda" because he sent articlescritical of the Soviet authorities to bepublished outside the country. He wasordered confined to the DnepropetrovskSpecial Psychiatric Hospital in theUkraine. While there, he met LeonidPLYUSHCH, another prisoner of con-science, who has since left the USSR andwho has publicly described Evdokimov'splight.

Four years later, Evdokimov wastransferred to the Kazan Special Psy-chiatric Hospital where, according topersistent reports, he has been treated

Haji Sayyid MA'ROUF, a 67-year-oldIraqi Kurd is reported to have beentortured to death in July 1977 accord-ing to delayed information reachingAl. A father of twelve, he was arrestedfor questioning after his son had lefthome to join the pesh mergas (theKurdish forces engaged in armedopposition to the Iraqi government).

AI groups are now asking the Iraqigovernment to initiate an investigationinto the circumstances of HajiMa'rouls death.

AI has received a number of reportsof deaths under torture in Iraq. Themutilated corpse of Reber Mulla

of psychiatric abusewith powerful drugs including tizertsin.As a result, his health has seriouslydeclined. According to the latest reports,Evdokimov now has difficulty even inwalking, a symptom probably attribut-able to his treatment. The doctor incharge of Evdokimov's treatment isreported to be Dr Olga IvanovnaVOLKOVA.

AI has adopted Evdokimov as aprisonet of conscience on the groundsthat he is detained because of the non-violent exercise of his human rightsrather than for authentic medical reasons.

Please write courteously wordedletters to the Director of the KazanSpecial Psychiatric Hospital expressingconcern at reports that Evdokimov isreceiving medical treatment which isdamaging his health, and urging that allsteps be taken to obtain his release.Write to: SSSR, RSFSR, TatarskayaASSR, g. Kazan 420082, ul. Ershova 49,uchr. UE 146, Nachalniku, PolkovnikuK.L. Sveshnikovu.

HUSAIN, a 19-year-old student respons-ible for the Kurdistan Students Unionin Zakho, was returned to his family on26 April 1976 less than a week after hisarrest. Nine nails were reportedly foundin his body, one eye was gouged outand his penis had been cut off.

Sayyid Muhammad ISMAIL, an 80-year-old Iraqi Kurd who was arrestedin May 1977 in connection with hisson's alleged involvement in blowing upa secret police car in Arbil, reportedlydied in custody soon after as a result oftorture. In both these cases Al hasasked the government to investigatethe allegations but, as far as is known,no investigation has been undertakenO

PakistanAmputations arecommuted; lashescontinueAI has welcomed recent press reportsthat sentences of amputation passed onthree prisoners accused of robbing abank in Nanakwara, Pakistan, havebeen commuted. In a letter of 20 Nov-ember 1978 to Chief Martial LawAdministrator, General MohammedZIA ul-Haq, AI said it hoped thiscruel and inhuman punishment wouldnow be rescinded.

Al also urged General Zia to end theflogging of political prisoners. Thepunishment is being inflicted on peoplewho participate in peaceful processionsas a means of exercising the right offreedom of expression, which is guaran-teed in the Pakistan Constitution.

The imposition of this punishment,and particularly its frequent impos-ition for peaceful activities duringrecent months, has caused considerableinternational concern. Al has recom-mended that General Zia commute thesentences of all those sentenced bymartial law courts to receive lashes.

Doctors involvedAmputation and flogging were intro-duced in Pakistan by martial lawregulations following the military take-over of July 1977. Al has received noreports of execution of the sentence ofamputation, which has to be carriedout by a qualified surgeon under localanaesthetic. Recent reports of floggingssuggest that a prison doctor is involvedin supervising execution of this sen-tence as well.

Both punishments are provided forin the Shariat (Islamic religious law)for certain offences, but have not beenprescribed—as far as AI knows— forpolitical offences.

The infliction of these punishmentsis contrary to the Universal Declarationof Human Rights, the 1975 UnitedNations Declaration on the Protectionof All Persons from Torture andCruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatmentor Punishment, and other internationalhuman rights instruments. The imposi-tion of these sentences under medicalsupervision contravenes the WorldMedical Association's 1975 "Declarationof Tokyo", which prohibits doctors'involvement in such practicesO

appealAmnesty International opposes the torture of prisoners in all cases,wherever and whenever it is practised. Any act of torture or othercruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment is a violation ofthe international human rights standards unanimously adopted by theGeneral Assembly of the United Nations. International appeals canhelp to alleviate the plight of prisoners being subjected to cruel treat-ment. Your letters should follow carefully the instructions givenbelow.

IraqFather of twelve 'tortured to death'

8 JANUARY 1979

New Evidence collected of torture in IranPolitical prisoners in Iran are being sub-jected to torture and cruel treatmentat the hands of the police and SAVAKagents despite frequent assurances bythe Shah that the practice has beenhalted.

A recent AI mission to Iran whichvisited six cities and towns in thecourse of a two-week stay in thecountry, from 11 to 24 November1978, received detailed informationwhich convinced them that torture isstill being inflicted upon prisoners.

The Al delegates received numerousreports of disappearances and deathsunder torture. They returned withlists of people alleged to have dis-appeared after being arrested and insome cases believed to have died undertorture during the past year.

The mission, consisting of New Yorkattorney David EMIL and a member ofAl's research staff, also brought backindividual testimonies resulting frominterviews with more than 60 releasedprisoners, relatives of prisoners andlawyers, including people arrested inrecent months.

The interviews dealt with thetreatment of political prisoners anddetention conditions and confirmedallegations spanning the last 15 yearsthat the torture of political prisonershas been practised systematicallythroughout the country and has notstopped.

In some cases the torture had beencarried out during interrogation in

order to extract information or con-fessions. In other cases the tortureappeared to be used as punishment forpolitical activities or as a deterrent.

Methods of torture which appear tohave been used recently include whip-ping with cables, the beating of thesoles of the feet (falanga),kicking,punching, burning of parts of the bodywith cigarettes, extended sleep dep-rivation combined with forced standing,the application of nettles to sensitiveparts of the body and long periods ofsolitary confinement.

In one case, a 56-year-old man fromZanjan was allegedly burned all overhis body with cigarettes by SAVAKagents because he had in his posses-sion a statement by the religious leader,Ayatollah SHARIAT-MADARI.

Another report concerned a group ofyoung men who were arrested in Amoulin April 1978 and subsequentlyacquitted. The Al delegates were toldthat they were beaten with cables, hadnettles placed in their mouths, armpitsand other sensitive parts of the bodyand had been thrown into cold water.

The Al delegates received frequentreports of indiscriminate police brutality

following arrest or detention. One suchreport concerned a 63-year-old man inMashad who had suffered 12 bonefractures and spent seven days in hos-pital as a result of being beaten by apoliceman ;fter his detention on8 November 1978.

In connection with the recent dis-

turbances in Iran, the Al missionreceived reports that the army andpolice had impeded the medical treat-ment of wounded people in variouscities. In one incident, a doctor inMashad told the Al delegates that on20 November 1978 three people, whohad been wounded in a demonstrationand who were in a critical condition,were brought to the hospital where heworked but w,:re subsequently removedby soldier in spite of the doctor's pro-tests. The victims were later reported bythe army to have died. A similar reportwas received about two other peopletaken on the same day to another hos-pital in Mashad.

AI Secretary General, MartinENNALS, who met the Shah in March1977 said he had received an assuranceat that time that torture' had beenstopped in Iran. The Shah repeatedsimilar assurances in the German maga-zine Stern on 30 August 1978.

"This is gross hypocrisy," saidEnnals. "Two years ago Iran was aprincipal sponsor of a United Nationsresolution aimed at preventing torturethroughout the world. Since then it hasmade a unilateral declaration to be

bound by a UN code against torture. Iranis also bound by the International Cov-enant on Civil and Political Rights toprohibit torture. Our informationclearly indicates that Iran has renegedon her own undertakings and hasviolated international law"0

JordanGov't says prisonerdied in hospitalThe Jordanian government has respond-ed to requests both from AI SecretaryGeneral Martin ENNALS and fromindividual AI members urging an im-mediate inquiry into the reported deathin detention of Omar Musa AJOURY.

Ajoury, a 20-year-old Palestinianstudent at Jordan University, wasbelieved to have died in the AbdeliIntelligence Service Prison in Amman,the capital, on 5 June 1978, after aneight-day hunger and thirst strike(September 1978 CAT Bulletin).

Al has reason to believe that thearrest was due to his friendship withother Palestinian students, some ofwhom may have been involved inPalestinian resistance activities. Ajouryhimself was understood by Al to be aprisoner of conscience.

Numerous allegations of ill-treatment of prisoners held forinterrogation at the Abdeli prison havebeen received by AI. Prisoners heldthere are known to be frequently sub-jected to prolonged solitary confinement.

The Jordanian government, however,has said that Ajoury was arrested forinvolvement in violent activities andthat he died in the Central MilitaryHospital where he was receiving inten-sive medical care for kieney failure.According to the government, he hadalready been suffering from a chronickidney ailment before the arrest.

Nevertheless, the official governmentreply indicates that, although Ajouryhad been arrested 51/2 months earlier, hewas still "being interrogated" less than24 hours before his death.

To further clarify the facts aboutthe case, AI wrote to the government on1 December 1978 asking for furtherinformation about the charges broughtagainst Ajoury, the legal procedures

followed between his arrest in November1977 and his death in May 1978, hisplace of detention and the date onwhich he was transferred to the CentralMilitary HospitalD

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