19 AUGUST 1978, Page 18

False rights

Sir: Judith Acton questions (Spectator, 12 August) the propriety of Mrs Judith Hart, as Minister of Overseas Development, including Indonesia in the states not 'having seriously violated human rights' and thus qualified for cancellation of loan repayments.

First in the list of the lucky comes Afghanistan. The new regime in Kabul must be presumed to have achieved the impossible: a Red Terror without serious violation of human rights.

John Biggs-Davison House of Commons, London SW1