Vietnam’s Crackdown on Freedom of Expression Intensifies in 2020
Families of Vietnamese political prisoners describe hardships suffered
during lengthy detentions.
RFA | 2020-12-09
Vietnam has stepped up arrests and harsh gag orders on activists, independent
journalists, bloggers and Facebook commenters who raise concerns or criticism of
their government in 2020, rights groups said.
One-party Vietnam’s already low tolerance of dissent has deteriorated sharply
this year with a steady drumbeat of arrests in the run-up to the ruling
Communist Party conference next month.
According to Amnesty International, as of May, 2019 Vietnam had in its custody
118 prisoners of conscience. Some have since been released after serving their
sentences, but many more have been arrested and detained on similar charges.
New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported in June that since the end of
2019 that the crackdown had been intensifying. HRW said that at that time it was
aware of “at least 150 people convicted for exercising their rights to freedom
of expression or association and currently in prison,” and 15 more on pretrial
detention.
“Vietnam has one of the worst human rights records in Southeast Asia. It has
some of the largest number of political prisoners and is sentencing people to
extremely long prison terms,” Phil Robertson, deputy director of HRW’s Asia
Division told RFA’s Vietnamese Service.
“We're
seeing people sent to prison for 12 years or 14 years for basically exercising
their civil and political rights or the right to freedom of expression the right
to peaceful public assembly, and the right to associate without government
permission.”
Robertson said that these core rights were guaranteed by the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Vietnam has ratified, but they are
ignored by Vietnam with the excuse that anything covered by Vietnamese law is
not a human rights violation.
“So, there's a huge gap between what the Vietnamese law says and what the
international human rights obligations require of Vietnam but Vietnam, just
ignores that as an inconvenient truth,” Robertson said.
Ahead of International Human Rights Day Thursday, multiple relatives told RFA
that since their family members were taken in by authorities, they have been
harassed, surveilled, denied visitation and even assaulted.
“When my husband was first detained, from May to September 2019, the police
were often watching me, even posting guards at the stairway in front of my
house,” Pham Thi Lan, wife of political prisoner Nguyen Tuong Thuy, told RFA.
Her husband, the vice president of the Independent Journalists Association of
Vietnam (IJAVN), was arrested for criticizing the government.
“Now it is very hard to visit my husband. When they arrested him, they
definitely had a motivation to put him in jail. The law says after the
investigation period ends, our family must be allowed to meet him directly, but
the authorities are denying us. I only want to meet him in accordance with the
law,” she said.
Authorities indicted Nguyen and two other members of the IJAVN on November 10
for making, storing, disseminating, or propagandizing information, materials and
products that aim to oppose the state of the socialist republic of Vietnam”
under Article 117 of Vietnam Penal Code.
Nguyen, Pham Chi Dung, and Le Huu Minh Tuan could face between 10 to 20 years in
jail if convicted.
In another high-profile case, a court in Hanoi simultaneously sentenced 29
defendants in September for their involvement in a deadly clash over land rights
that left three police officers and a protest leader dead in January at the Dong
Tam commune outside Hanoi.
Of these, two received death sentences, while others got between 10 to 16 years
in jail.
Four others who had raised their concern online and with foreign governments
were arrested. Among them were Can Thi Theu and her two sons Trinh Ba Tu and
Trinh Ba Phuong.
Trinh Ba Phuong’s wife Do Thi Thu told RFA that authorities arrested her husband
a mere four days after she gave birth.
“I felt very sad because three members in my family had been arrested at the
same day. Currently, my husband is being detained at the No.1 Hoa Lo detention
camp in Hanoi. Since his arrest, I have only been able to send clothes and money
to him,” she told RFA.
“My life has been turned upside down, my two kids felt the emotional void
created by the absence of their father, grandmother and uncle,” she said, adding
that the other two were detained far away in Hoa Binh, province, some 75
kilometers (46 miles) away.
Another high-profile case is that of Nguyen Van Hoa, a former RFA videographer
who was arrested in January 2017 for filming protests outside the Taiwan-owned
Formosa Plastics Group steel plant, from which a toxic spill in 2016 killed an
estimated 115 tons of fish and left fishermen and tourism workers jobless in
four central provinces.
In Nov. 2017, he received a seven-year sentence with three years’ probation for
“opposing the state” under Article 88 of Vietnam’s Penal Code and is n detention
in Quang Nam province, where he in 2020 began and ended a hunger strike.
On Tuesday, Nguyen’s sister Nguyen Thi Hue told RFA that she received a letter
from her brother on Dec. 2, in which he told her he continues to refuse to wear
a prison uniform.
According to the letter, which the An Diem Detention Camp authorities censored,
Nguyen on Nov. 11 sent a petition to Vietnam’s Public Security Minister To Lam
to denounce his and other prisoners’ maltreatment at the facility.
Nguyen states in the letter that the content of petition was also censored by
prison authorities. He also said that he applied for a transfer to another
detention camp because of the harsh conditions and inequality among prisoners in
An Diem.
Elderly family members told RFA that the lengthy sentences handed down during
the crackdown mean that they might never see each other again.
Authorities on Oct. 6 arrested an outspoken Vietnamese democracy activist and
author Pham Doan Trang on charges of “making, storing, distributing or
disseminating information, documents and items against the Socialist Republic of
Vietnam,” under article 117 of Vietnam’s 2015 Penal Code, accused as well as
“anti-state propaganda” under article 88 of the 1999 Penal Code. She faces up to
20 years in prison if convicted.
Described by state media as a blogger who used to work for various publications
in Vietnam, Pham was transferred to the capital Hanoi where she is currently
being held at the Public Security Ministry’s No. 1 Detention Camp.
“Since her most recent arrest, we have not been able to meet each other,” Pham’s
mother Bui Thi Thein told RFA this week.
“I have only been able to see her signature and am not able to meet her at all.
I’ve heard that she could face 20 years in jail if she’s found guilty. As I am
80 years old this year, I fear that when my daughter is released from prison, I
will have been dead for a long time. I don’t know if I can wait for her return
or not,” Bui said.
Bui spoke of her pride in her daughter’s commitment to democratic ideals and
said she is at peace even if she never gets to Pham again, but would consider
such an opportunity to be a stroke of luck.
The crackdown has not been limited to online dissent.
On May 21, authorities arrested Pham Chi Thanh, an author of books and essays
critical of Vietnam’s communist government and leaders, including a book
self-published in 2019 harshly criticizing Communist Party General Secretary
Nguyen Phu Trong.
A large group of police who burst through the door of his home and seized
personal documents, two computers, and a printer. He was later charged under
Article 117 of Vietnam’s penal code for “producing, storing, and disseminating
information and documents against the Vietnamese state.”
In November, Pham was transferred to a mental hospital in the town of Van Dien
in Hanoi’s Than Tri district according to his wife Nguyen Thi Nghiem.
She told RFA Dec. 10 that the move surprised her.
“My husband is not psychotic nor mentally ill. I wish only for my husband’s
health and good spirit,” she said.
Robertson said that with each passing International Human Rights Day, the
situation in Vietnam is not improving, and that COVID-19 has diverted attention
away from Hanoi, allowing the government to get away with intensifying
crackdowns.
“In fact, it's getting worse. And that is certainly the case this year where we
have seen a renewed crackdown by the authorities, taking advantage of the
distraction of the international community with many countries in Europe and
North America preoccupied with their own situation in the COVID-19 pandemic,” he
said.
“No one has been looking over their shoulder and no one has been objecting to
them going after the dissidents and trying to potentially destroy what remains
of the pro-democracy pro-human rights movement on the ground in Vietnam,”
Robertson said.
Data from South Africa-based nonprofit CIVICUS’ Monitor research tool classified
Vietnam as one of four Asian countries rated “closed” in terms of civil society
and civic freedoms, along with China, Laos, and North Korea.
Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Huy Le. Written in English
by Eugene Whong.
Vietnam Human Rights Network |