Trio of Vietnamese Political Prisoners Stage Hunger Strike Over Missing Cellmate
RFA
– 03/25/2015
Three
prominent political prisoners in Vietnam on hunger strike for nearly a week say
they will not end their protest until authorities inform them of the whereabouts
of a fellow inmate, according to the mother of one of the activists, who
expressed concerns about their health.
Dinh Nguyen Kha, Dang Xuan Dieu and Nguyen Hoang Quoc Hung began their hunger
strike at the Xuyen Moc prison in Ba Ria Vung Tau province along with their
cellmate Tran Vu Anh Binh on March 19 in protest of poor conditions, Kha’s
mother Nguyen Thi Kim Lien told RFA’s Vietnamese Service following her visit
with him over the weekend.
However, Binh, who is a Catholic, was handcuffed and taken away the same day
following an argument with guards who had torn off his rosary beads during a
search, Lien said. The other three prisoners had since vowed to continue their
hunger strike until authorities informed them of Binh’s whereabouts and
condition, she added.
Prison authorities confirmed to her that Kha had declined to take food, adding
that it was against policy to let inmates go hungry.
Lien said her son had informed her Dieu and Hung were both “very ill” because of
the strike, and that guards cut her hour-long visit with Kha short by 20 minutes
because he had been told not to talk about other prisoners.
“They said that they had already warned him not to mention other inmates,
otherwise they would cut short the visit,” she said.
During her last visit in January, Lien said Kha told her that he, Dieu, Hung and
Binh had held a 10-day hunger strike earlier that month in protest of
ill-treatment at the prison after authorities had refused them newspapers, books
and a Vietnamese-English dictionary sent by supporters.
Kha said the four men had ended their protest after officials from the Ba Ria
Vung Tau prosecutor’s office agreed to investigate their complaint.
“The [prison] warden told me [at the time] they would not respond to any request
[about conditions] and that the requests were illegal. That was why Kha sent his
petition against the prison to … the prosecutor’s office for Ba Ria Vung Tau,”
she said.
“[The prosecutor’s office] did go to the prison and talked with Kha and the
warden. They told Kha he would need another inmate present with him to act as
witness to his complaint, but the warden would not allow that.”
The refusal to consider their complaint about prison conditions prompted the
four to start another hunger strike last week, Lien said.
Former political prisoner Truong Minh Tam, who had served time with Dieu at
Prison No. 5 in Thanh Hoa province, and who has visited him regularly at Xuyen
Moc, told RFA that he was concerned the hunger strike would seriously affect his
health, which he said was already frail to begin with.
“Ill-treatment in Prison No. 5 and his previous hunger strikes—the longest of
which was seven months—have made him very sickly,” he said.
“Based on what I’ve seen, in his current situation, if Dieu continues his hunger
strike for another three to five days, he may end up in critical condition.”
Four activists
A computer technician, Dinh Nguyen Kha was arrested in October 2012 on charges
of spreading anti-state propaganda over leaflets he distributed at a protest
over territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea.
He was initially jailed for eight years in May 2013 but, in a rare reversal by
authorities, his sentence was reduced to four years in August that year.
Engineer Dang Xuan Dieu was jailed for 13 years in 2013 on charges of plotting
to overthrow the authoritarian government in Hanoi.
Nguyen Hoang Quoc Hung was accused of inciting workers to go on strike at the My
Phong footwear company in Tra Vinh province in southern Vietnam’s Mekong Delta
region, where thousands protested in January and February 2010 for better
working conditions and higher wages.
Hung was sentenced on Oct. 27 that year to nine years in prison on charges of
disturbing public order and “acting against the people’s administration,”
according to Article 89 of Vietnam’s Penal Code.
Ho Chi Minh City-based musician Tran Vu Anh Binh was sentenced in October 2012
to six years in jail for producing “propaganda against the state” after
allegedly contributing to a blog run by the Patriot Youth, an overseas political
opposition group.
Several popular singers in Vietnam have preformed music by Binh, who is a choir
member with the Catholic Redemptorist Order and has written songs against the
imprisonment of dissidents.
Reported by Hoa Ai for RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Written in English by
Joshua Lipes.