CORRESPONDENCE - 85A COMBINED REPORTS OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN VIETNAM 2012

Home Browse Search

Such is the case of Lawyers Nguyen Van Dai, Le Thi Cong Nhan, Le Quoc Quan, Tran Quoc Hien, Nguyen Bac Truyen, Le Tran Luat, Nguyen Quoc Dat, and Le Cong Dinh in previous years. In 2011, the government continued its policy of oppression against lawyers involved in sensitive cases. In April 2011, Dr. Cu Huy Ha Vu was sentenced to 7 years in prison and 3 years under house arrest for his active attempts to protect human rights by defending victims and suing Premier Nguyen Tan Dung. In May 2011, the police of Tu Liem district in Hanoi conducted an emergency search of his residence and office and arrested Lawyer Hoang Dinh Trong together with Notary Nguyen Quang Anh, in charge of the Notary office My Dinh, for alleged "slanders." Lawyer Trong was urgently apprehended because of his daring denunciation of CPV officials taking over public land. In August 2011, Lawyer Huynh Van Dong had his name removed from the Bar Association of Lam Dong for alleged violations of some of its regulations while in actuality he was trying to defend a number of peasants in Ben Tre accused of "plotting to overthrow the government." He had previously accepted to defend Con Dau parishioners in Da Nang. The International Bar Association Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) has sent a protest letter to Vietnam asking that it respect Lawyer Dong's human rights and professional right. 4. An Inhuman System of Prisons To deceive the world public opinion, the Vietnamese government occasionally allows a certain diplomatic delegation to come to observe the activities in a prison. To prepare for the occasion, prisoners are always coached to get ready several days in advance about clothes, room cleanliness, and especially about how to answer questions. Vietnam Human Rights Network * Annual Report 2011 Nevertheless, the reality still exposes the egregious conditions of Vietnamese prisons in all aspects: narrow living quarters, lack of hygiene, insufficient food rations, hard labor, and regular beatings and tortures. Before being taken back to prison in 2011, Father Nguyen Van Ly has sent a letter to the United Nations to disclose tortures sustained by political prisoners in communist prisons. Based on testimonies of five prisoners of conscience named in the letter, the purposes of the tortures were to extort and mistreat these prisoners, who were often kept together with criminal ones under the control of infamous "rogues." Many prisoners of conscience are not allowed to be in touch with their families. The recipient of the 2009 Vietnam Human Rights Award, Pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh, for instance, was arrested in April 2011 but has since never been allowed to see his relatives, while his family has no idea of where he is detained, despite his bad health condition at the time of his arrest. Dissident Dieu Cay Nguyen Van Hai, also a recipient of the 2008 Vietnam Human Rights Award, is in the same situation: his family has heard nothing from him since October 2010. Puih H'Bat, a minority mother of four little kids, was sentenced to 5 years in prison in 2008 for her being a Protestant follower. She disappeared without a trace after her sentence, even her family is ignorant of her whereabouts, a condition sustained by hundreds of minority prisoners in the Central Highlands. More inhuman has been the communist treatment given to seriously sick prisoners. Prisoner of conscience Nguyen Van Trai, 74, was arrested in 1996 and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Just five months before his sentence ended, he fell severely sick and was transferred to a hospital where he was rejected. His wish to die among his family members was denied, forcing him to go back 14