Vietnam:
Expanding Campaign to Silence Dissent
04 Feb 2010
Source: Human Rights Watch
(New York) - The Vietnamese
government should immediately drop all charges and free the prominent writer and
democracy activist
Tran Khai Thanh Thuy, Human Rights Watch said today. She is to be put on
trial February 5, 2010, on assault charges after thugs attacked and beat her in
front of her home, as undercover police looked on.
Tran Khai Thanh Thuy and
Pham Thanh Nghien, who was sentenced to prison on January 29 on charges of
disseminating anti-government propaganda, are both recipients of the prestigious
Hellman/Hammett award, which honors writers who have been victims of political
persecution.
"Courageous women such as Tran Khai Thanh Thuy and Pham Thanh Nghien face years
behind bars rather than being able to contribute to the country's development,"
said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "When will the Vietnamese
government stop locking up peaceful activists who simply have different ideas
and the courage to express them?"
In defense of the Vietnamese Communist Party's crackdown on dissent, the party's
general secretary, Nong Duc Manh, said on February 2, "We struggle against all
the ... hostile forces by preventing them from profiting from...democracy, human
rights, multi-partyism and pluralism to sabotage the Vietnamese revolution."
The trials of the two women are the latest in a recent string of political
trials of dissidents arrested during 2009. At least 17 dissidents have been
sentenced to prison since October.
"None of these activists should be in prison," Adams said. "They are being
targeted for their legitimate and peaceful activities as human rights defenders,
democracy campaigners, dissident writers and political bloggers."
An established novelist and political essayist, Ms. Thuy, 50, was arrested the
evening of October 8, 2009. Earlier that day, police stopped her from travelling
to Hai Phong to attend the trials of fellow dissidents. They ordered her to
return to her home in Hanoi, where that evening she and her husband were
harassed and attacked by thugs.
Ms. Thuy, who suffered injuries to her head and neck, was arrested after the
attack and detained at Dong Da police station in Hanoi on charges of
"intentionally inflicting injury on or causing harm to the health of other
persons" under article 104 of Vietnam's Penal Code. On October 19, she was moved
to Hoa Lu prison in Hanoi. Since her arrest, her family has been denied contact
with Ms. Thuy, who suffers from diabetes and tuberculosis.
Ms. Thuy has played a key role in Vietnam's besieged democracy movement. In
2006, she started an association for victims of land confiscation (Hoi Dan Oan
Viet Nam), helped found the Independent Workers' Union of Vietnam, and joined
the editorial board of the pro-democracy bulletin To Quoc (Fatherland), which is
printed clandestinely in Vietnam and circulated on the internet. Up until five
weeks before her last arrest, she was also an active blogger (still available
online at:
https://webmail.hrw.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://trankhaithanhthuy.blogspot.com/).
Since emerging as an activist in 2006, Ms. Thuy has been repeatedly denounced
and humiliated in public meetings organized by the authorities, including a
"People's Court" in 2006, at which police gathered 300 people in a public
stadium to insult her. In November 2006 she was dismissed from her job as a
journalist and placed under house arrest to bar her from meeting with
international journalists and diplomats attending the Asian Pacific Cooperation
Summit in Hanoi. In April 2007 she was arrested and held incommunicado for more
than nine months at B-14 Detention Center in Hanoi. After her release in January
2008, she continued to encounter relentless harassment from police, local
officials, and orchestrated neighborhood gangs.
During 2009, for example, thugs attacked her house at least 14 times, throwing
excrement and dead rodents at her gate. They also inserted metal into her front
door lock on two occasions, locking her out of her own home. When she went to
the police to file a complaint, they refused to take any action, even though
neighbors reported that police were watching during some of the attacks on her
home.
"Charging the victim of a beating with assault is yet another example of
Vietnam's Kafkaesque efforts to silence government critics," Adams said. "The
thugs who attacked her, the people who sent them, and the police officers who
refused to intervene should all be brought to justice."
Ms. Nghien, 33, a writer and democracy campaigner, was sentenced by the Haiphong
Court on January 29 to four years in prison followed by three years under house
arrest on charges of spreading anti-government propaganda under article 88 of
the penal code. As with Ms. Thuy, Ms. Nghien's family has not been allowed to
visit her since her arrest in September 2008.
In 2007, when the wool company where Ms. Nghien worked went bankrupt, she began
doing advocacy work on behalf of landless farmers and writing articles calling
for human rights and democracy. In July, 2007, authorities barred her from
attending the trial of her close friend, the democracy campaigner Le Thi Cong
Nhan. After that, Ms. Nghien was repeatedly harassed by the police, who
regularly summoned her for aggressive questioning.
In June 2008, Ms. Nghien was detained after signing a letter with fellow
activists requesting authorization from the Public Security Ministry to organize
a peaceful demonstration against China's claims to the Spratley and Paracel
islands. A few days later, she was attacked and beaten by thugs, who threatened
her life if she continued "hostile actions" against the state. In September
2008, she was arrested along with other democracy activists during a government
crackdown that aimed to prevent planned anti-China protests at the Chinese
Embassy in Hanoi.
Human Rights Watch called on Vietnamese authorities to guarantee the physical
and psychological well-being of both women in prison, including providing needed
medication and medical treatment and allowing for regular family visits. Human
Rights Watch has documented systematic use of torture of political prisoners in
Vietnam, including beatings, electric shock, confinement in solitary, dark
cells, and prolonged shackling.
Human Rights Watch noted that the victims of the government's crackdown include
established writers, journalists, businesspeople, and lawyers such as Le Cong
Dinh, who was sentenced to prison last month on subversion charges. A long-time
journalist for the state media, Ms. Thuy is a member of the Association of Hanoi
Writers, the Club of Women Poets, the Club of Humoristic Journalists, and the
Association of Vietnamese Journalists. She is also an honorary member of English
PEN.
Other recipients of the Hellman/Hammett award who have been sentenced to prison
in recent months include
Nguyen Xuan Nghia, a 2008 recipient, and
Tran Anh Kim, a 2009 recipient.
"Vietnam's intolerance for different opinions has recently reached a new low as
the government tightens its grip in the run-up to next year's party congress,"
Adams said. "Unless Vietnam's donors make it clear that these abuses are
completely unacceptable, the downward trend will only get worse."