‘Gang will not be killed’

Press, 23 February 1978, Page 9

‘Gang will not be killed’

NZPA Tokyo! The “Gang of Four” radi- ’ cal leaders arrested in 1976 1 on charges of trying to seize 1 power will not be executed, > the official New China News'J Agency has said. In reports on China’s legal I 1 and prison systems, thel' agency quoted Han Yu-tung,![ deputy director of the Law 1! Institute of the Chinese Aca- ' demy of Social Sciences, as saying: “We must deal reso- ' lute blows at the Gang and 1 their swor followers, those unrepentant arch-criminals. “We must arrest those : who should be arrested. But according to the party’s consistent policy, we will not eliminate them physically,” ! Mr Han said. Although there have been unofficial reports that the four, headed by Chiang Ching, widow of Chairman; Mao Tse-tung, would not be| executed, this was believed! to be the first official con-| firmation.

The agency did not say what sort of punishment die | four face, or where they are’ now. They are believed to be under house arrest in. ! Peking. Another N.C.N.A. dispatch! I on Peking Prison said, “Only [certain individuals, guilty of! [towering crimes and bitterly I i hated by the people, are exe-! cuted among criminals convicted of offenses like murder, arson, rape, robbery, or heading gangs of ruffians.” Mr Han said the “Gang of Four” had regarded the legal system as an obstacle to its plans to seize power, and incited anarchism and engaged in “beating, smashing, and looting” to cause chaos. After their arrest, he said, “normal social order” was restored so that “the people's legal rights and I interests have been safei guarded, unity among the ! people has been strengthI ened, good social morale has been restored, and the

people’s minds have been [put at ease.” i’ He said that in investigating cases, evidence i was stressed and extortion lof confessions was strictly i[ forbidden. Leniency was extended to ’those who acknowledged ■, their crimes while “severe .! punishment is dealt to those! who stubbornly refuse to do so,” he added.

'lOO killed About 100 people were! 1 killed last Saturday in the ’ anti-Government rioting in ■ Tabriz, Iran’s second largest * city, two expatriate Iranian I organisations said in statements issued in Paris. The . organisations, the Iran Lib- > eration Movement and the ?; Committee for the Defence II of Human Rights in Iran, -jadded that on the same day 3|hundreds of people had b a en -(Wounded in Shiraz in s clashes between demonstraeltors and police. — Paris.