Con Son Torture Alleged

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32351, 17 July 1970, Page 16

Con Son Torture Alleged

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) SYDNEY, July 15. Four Australian students returned from Saigon yesterday claiming that they had evidence of the torture of political prisoners on Con Son Island, off South Vietnam. The students, two of whom are draft resisters, said that they had a.typed statement by five Saigon students claiming that they were tortured in the “tiger cages” on the island, 140 miles south of Saigon. They are Graham Jensen, a theology student at Sydney University, Mr Lyn Arnold, an economics student from Adelaide, Mr Anthony Dalton from the Technical Institute in Melbourne and Mr Michael Hamel-Green, a post-graduate student of politics at Melbourne University. The students, who spent a week in Saigon, claimed that

the typed statement was given to them by a former Con Son inmate, Mr Cao Hguyen Loi, a Saigon university student. They said that it stated prisoners were hung by the heels shackled round the ankles with irons, given electric shocks and beaten with truncheons for minor misdemeanors. The students, who went to South Vietnam to find how repressive the South Vietnamese Government was towards anti-war protesters, said that they would give wide publicity to the plight of political prisoners in the country. They claimed that about 1000 Saigon students were in gaol for speaking out against tile war. In ‘Melbourne, Mr HamelGreen, of Carlton, said that there was an abundance of evidence that the South Vietnamese people wanted an immediate end to the war. The students said that they had spoken to intellectuals, Buddhists. Roman Catholics, students, lawyers, union lead-

ers and Government employees. Mr Hamel-Green said that throughout the interviews—in which he claimed people risked gaol by talking to them —there was one recurrent theme “that they wanted the war to end and they wanted foreign troops to leave the country.” He said that students spoke of being tortured by police because of their peace efforts, and “some are still in gaol although they have not been charged with any offence.” Three of the students were present when more than 1000 demonstrators fought a street battle with police in Saigon. Mr Dalton said that the demonstration started out as a peaceful meeting and march. “Police put barricades at two ends of a street, trapping the students in the middle. “There was no escape. And the police hurled tear-gas cannisters into the groups of students,” he said. “The tear-gas they used was

a stronger type than used in the United States.”