Vietnamese Doctor Charged With ‘Harming People’s Trust in the Party’
RFA | 2021-03-23
Police in north-central Vietnam’s Nghe An province arrested the owner of a
private clinic on Monday, accusing the physician of undermining people’s trust
in the Communist Party in a series of articles posted on social media, state
media sources said.
Nguyen Duy Huong, a 34-year-old medical doctor and owner of the Duy Nhi clinic
in the Yen Thanh district’s Vienh Tanh commune, was charged under Article 117 of
the Criminal Code with “creating, storing, or disseminating information and
documents against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.”
Security services said that articles posted since 2018 on Huong’s Facebook page
included a Feb. 20, 2021 story called “Why Should We Criticize Nguyen Phu Trong,”
which criticized the ruling Communist Party general secretary, now serving his
third term in office, for turning the party into “a swamp.”
Huong had written in the same article that he was willing to sacrifice even his
family and job in order to change the Party and the country, according to a
report in the Ministry of Public Security’s official newspaper.
“I have devoted my life to this [cause],” Huong wrote, quoted in the Ministry
paper. “Reforms must be carried out so that our people can really be their own
masters, the party can be cleaned up, and the country can move forward.”
Huong’s writings had undermined the Vietnamese people’s trust in their ruling
party and the socialist regime and had harmed political and ideological unity in
the country, and should therefore be “handled strictly,” the ministry paper
said.
Appeals trial scheduled
Separately, the appeals trial for political dissident Tran Duc Thach, who was
sentenced by a Nghe An court to 12 years in prison on charges of subversion on
Dec. 12, 2020, will be held on Wednesday, his defense attorney said.
Thach had heard only the day before that the trial would be held, attorney Ha
Huy Son told RFA on Tuesday.
“I met with Thach this afternoon. His health is worse now than it was at the
first trial, but he’s in good spirits and will present his points of view at
tomorrow’s trial,” Son said, adding, “Although he only learned about the trial
today, he’s ready for it.”
“We have some hope, but not much, because not many changes are made at appeals
trials in cases related to national security except when there are new
developments,” he said.
Thach, a co-founder of Vietnam’s online Brotherhood for Democracy, was arrested
on April 23, 2020 and charged with “activities aimed at overthrowing the
People’s Government” under Article 109 of Vietnam’s Criminal Code for Facebook
postings exposing government corruption and human rights abuses.
The Brotherhood for Democracy is not recognized by the Vietnamese government,
and many of its members have been imprisoned since its founding in 2013.
Activist for human rights
Born in 1952 in Nghe An, Thach served with North Vietnamese forces during the
Vietnam War and was afterward an activist for human rights and democracy in
Vietnam for many years.
In his book A
Haunting Collective Grave, he tells the story of how North
Vietnamese soldiers killed hundreds of innocents at Tan Lap commune in Dong Nai
province’s Xuan Loc district during the final campaign of the war that ended
with communist forces’ victory on April 30, 1975.
Thach was earlier sentenced to three years in jail in October 2009 for
“conducting propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” along with
fellow dissidents Vu Van Hung and Pham Van Troi.
Vietnam, with a population of 92 million people, has been consistently rated
“not free” in the areas of internet and press freedom by Freedom House, a
U.S.-based watchdog group.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) ranked Vietnam 175 out of 180 in its 2020 World
Press Freedom Index. About 25 journalists and bloggers are being held in
Vietnam’s jails, “where mistreatment is common,” the Paris-based watchdog group
said.
Vietnam’s already low tolerance of dissent deteriorated sharply last year with a
spate of arrests of independent journalists, publishers, and Facebook
personalities as authorities continued to stifle critics in the run-up to the
ruling Communist Party congress in January.
Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Chau Vu. Written in English
by Richard Finney.
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