Vietnamese
Political Prisoners’ Parents Visit US to Call for Sons' Release
RFA – 12/13/2013
The
parents of two Vietnamese political prisoners held for speaking out against the
government are in the United States to muster international pressure for the
release of their sons, saying they are risking imprisonment and official
harassment themselves by making the visit.
Pro-democracy blogger Tran Huynh Duy Thuc’s father Tran Van Huynh and activist
Dinh Nguyen Kha’s mother Nguyen Thi Kim Lien met with U.S. State Department
officials and rights groups this month to seek their help in the campaign for
their sons’ freedom.
The two parents said their families have already faced harassment and
intimidation by the authorities but that that would not stop them from fighting
for justice, maintaining that the two men are “innocent.”
Thuc, a 47-year-old businessman-cum-activist, is serving a 16-year prison
sentence over blog posts calling for social and economic reforms in Vietnam
while Kha, 25, is serving a four-year sentence for “conducting propaganda
against the state” over leaflets he distributed at a protest over territorial
disputes with China in the South China Sea.
Huynh said he was urgently seeking support from the U.S. government and the
overseas Vietnamese community to lobby for the release of Thuc because his son
had been in deteriorating health since being transferred to a different prison
earlier this year.
“My son is innocent and I am seeking his freedom by reaching out for support
from both inside and outside the country,” Huynh told RFA’s Vietnamese Service.
Thuc, a founder of the pro-human rights “Vietnam Path Movement” of online
dissidents, was transferred in June from Xuan Loc prison to Xuyen Moc prison,
where he is subject to more stringent restrictions than before and kept in a
separate section with other political prisoners, his father said.
Family members have only been allowed to bring him food and daily necessities
once per month at Xuyen Moc, and he has had to buy food from the prison, which
has affected his health, Huynh said.
“Conditions there are very difficult and that affects his health,” his father
said.
Thuc was arrested in 2009 along with several other activists—including prominent
jailed rights lawyer Le Cong Dinh—with whom he had started writing a book on
“Vietnam’s path” toward better protection for human rights, according to rights
groups.
All of them were convicted of “activities aimed at overthrowing the
administration” at a trial in 2010, with Thuc receiving the harshest sentence.
Huynh said the family would face retaliation after returning from the U.S. to
Vietnam, where police surveillance and harassment is a common experience for
dissident bloggers and their families.
“They know we made this trip and we certainly will have difficulties when we
return but we accept all of it,” Huynh said.
“We’re making this trip as any parent would for their children, so we accept
whatever happens to us,” he said.
Mother’s plight
Kim Lien said she too feared she would face harassment for her efforts to drum
up support abroad for the release of her son Kha.
“I accept any danger. I might be imprisoned when I return or my family could be
harassed,” she told RFA’s Vietnamese Service.
Kim Lien is also campaigning for freedom for her other son, Dinh Nhat Uy, who
has been convicted of “abusing democratic freedoms” in Facebook posts calling
for his brother’s release.
Uy was released from prison in October after receiving a suspended sentence and
is subject to strict surveillance under probation.
“My sons just expressed their patriotism, but they have had to suffer such
injustices,” she said.
“I think there are many other mothers like all over Vietnam.”
Kim Lien said that police arrived at her home in southern Vietnam’s Long An
province as soon as she left the country for the U.S. earlier this month.
“Long An police sent two people to guard my house every day since December 3rd.
They follow my husband and mentally terrorize him.”
“But I accept all that. I’m seeking freedom for my sons because they are still
young, and if the government and organizations here can save them, then the
young people of Vietnam will know what path to follow to seek democracy and
freedom.”
Reported by Hoa Ai for RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Viet Ha.
Written in English by Rachel Vandenbrink.