Vietnam: Free Seriously Ill Rights Advocates
National Day
Releases Should Include All Imprisoned Dissidents
Human Rights Watch
(New York, August
31, 2011) – The Vietnam government should immediately release two ailing
dissidents and ensure their proper medical treatment, Human Rights Watch said
today. Nguyen Van Hai, the blogger known as Dieu Cay, 59, is believed to have
suffered a serious injury in prison. Father Nguyen Van Ly, 65, a veteran
political activist who had been given medical parole because of three strokes
and other serious illness, was re-incarcerated in July.
“A great way for Vietnam to celebrate its
National Day would be by freeing all those imprisoned for the peaceful exercise
of their human rights,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at
Human Rights Watch. “The unconditional release of dissidents needing urgent
medical treatment should be at the top of the list.”
Vietnam usually celebrates its National Day, September 2, with a partial
amnesty of prisoners. This year the government announced it will release 10,244
prisoners. According to Vietnamese state media, only five of them are prisoners
incarcerated for “national security crimes.” Frequently, the authorities punish
critics who peacefully exercise their rights to association, assembly, and free
expression with criminal convictions under the mantle of “national security
crimes.” Hundreds of dissidents convicted of such crimes remain behind bars.
Two of the five who reportedly are to be released are the democracy
activists Nguyen Van Tinh and Tran Duc Thach, a 2010 winner of the
Hellman/Hammett award for writers who have been victims of political
persecution.
Human Rights Watch is deeply concerned for the health of Nguyen Van Hai,
popularly known by his blog moniker Dieu Cay. He is co-founder of the Club for
Free Journalists, established in September 2007 to promote freedom of expression
and independent journalism. He was arrested on April 20, 2008. On September 10,
2008, a criminal court sentenced him to 30 months in prison on a trumped-up tax
evasion charge. In 2009, he received the Hellman/Hammett award.
On October 20, 2010, police transferred Nguyen Van Hai from Xuan Loc (Z30A)
prison in Dong Nai province, where he had been serving his prison term, to the
headquarters of the Security Investigative Bureau of the Ho Chi Minh City
Municipal Department of Public Security at No. 4 Phan Dang Luu Street. Both
decades-old facilities are notorious for their horrific conditions and the
long-term imprisonment and ill-treatment of political prisoners.
On July 17, 2011, Nguyen Van Hai’s former wife, Duong Thi Tan, filed a
complaint with the Ho Chi Minh City Municipal Department of Public Security
about his health and safety. She alleged that a police officer told her on July
5 that “Mr. Hai has lost an arm.” Concerns have been heightened by the Ho Chi
Minh City police’s rejection of an application from Nguyen Van Hai’s lawyer to
represent him and multiple requests by his family to visit him. His current
whereabouts
and health condition are unknown.
“The Vietnam government shamelessly constructs charges to keep peaceful
critics like Dieu Cay behind bars and then deny them any outside contact,”
Robertson said. “Denying access to counsel and family members is all the more
egregious when there are concerns about his health.”
Father Nguyen Van Ly was returned to prison on July 25. He had been
sentenced to eight years in prison in March 2007 for pro-democracy activities,
including issuing a manifesto calling for peaceful struggle to establish human
rights and democracy in Vietnam. The authorities charged him with disseminating
“anti-government propaganda” under penal code article 88.
The authorities released Ly on temporary medical parole on March 15, 2010,
and sent him to his parish in Hue. His release came after he suffered three
strokes while in solitary confinement in 2009. He was returned to prison in July
to serve the remaining five years in his term.
Since 1977, Ly has spent a total of 15 years in prison for his peaceful
campaigning for religious freedom, democracy, and human rights. He was one of
the principal architects of the democracy movement known as Bloc 8406, named
after the date of its founding on April 8, 2006. In 2004 and 2008, he received
Hellman/Hammett awards.
Ly needs continuing medical treatment for his serious health problems, which
include a three-centimeter brain tumor that may have contributed to paralysis of
his right leg and arm while in prison, and carotid atherosclerosis, which can
cause strokes.
“Father Ly was convicted solely for expressing peaceful political beliefs
and he should never have been imprisoned in the first place,” Robertson said.
“We are concerned that his return to prison when he is so ill is putting his
life at grave risk.”