U.N. Urged To Investigate Charges Of Torture

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27733, 10 August 1955, Page 13

U.N. Urged To Investigate Charges Of Torture

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

(Rec. 8 p.m.)

WASHINGTON, August 9.

Two United States Senators today called for a United Nations investigation of charges by 11 recentlyreleased United States airmen that they were tortured while imprisoned in Communist China. Senator Joseph O’Mahoney (Democrat, Wyoming) told a Reuter correspondent: “The State department should put this matter before the United Nations for action. Torture of prisoners of war is just unforgiveable and it is a subject for -consideration under the United Nations Charter.” He was supported by Senator Karl Mundt (Republican, South Dakota) who said it would be appropriate for the United Nations to set up a commission to investigate “on the spot in China” the charges of brutality, particularly as the Chinese were denying the airmen’s statements. Senator Mundt said that he did not expect the charges, which have caused public indignation in the United States, to interfere with the current Chinese-United States negotiations at Geneva on the repatriation of civilians and other matters at issue between the two countries.

.The airmen had told a press conference that their captors had tortured them to get military information and confessions that they were on a spying mission when their plane was shot down. Informed United States sources in Japan were quoted in press reports yesterday as saying that the airmen’s charges probably would go before the United Nations. But State Department sources in Washington today said there were no official proposals under consideration at present for United Nations action. They said it was. much early to say what might be done as the Government would want much more information that was available now before reaching any decision. Preliminary intelligence reports, based on interviews with the airmen shortly after their release, were under study in the State Department and the Defence Department. Officials said that further reports were expected. The airmen, who had spent more than two years in Chinese imprisonment, were scheduled to land at an airbase in California about Thursday. Press Comment The New York “Herald Tribune” said today that the torturing of 11 American airmen by their Chinese Communist captors was another addition to “Red China’s black record.” The newspaper said that those nations and statesmen who had argued that Peking should be admitted to the United Nations might have put their consciences to rest by the old theory that relations between nations were not governed by moral codes but by the recognition of existing authority. “But even if that were a satisfactory guide to world policies—and the United Nations does not accept it as such—the United Nations Charter expressly refutes it,” said the “Herald Tribune.” To qualify for membership of the United Nations, Communist China would have drastically to change its code of conduct, the newspaper said. The New York “Daily News” said it was convinced that the airmen’s experiences showed the true nature of Communists the world over.