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Political Blogger Nguyen Ngoc Gia Tortured in Prison, His Health under Critical Situation
Defend the Defenders December 15, 2016
Political blogger Nguyen Ngoc Gia or Nguyen Dinh Ngoc, who is serving his three-year imprisonment, has been tortured in the Ho Chi Minh City-based Chi Hoa Prison and his health has worsened badly, the local Dan Lam Bao newswire has reported.
Accordingly, Mr. Ngoc was fettered two times which lasted one week each. The first fettering was imposed against him on July 17-24 after he demanded the prison to improve the prison’s conditions and the second was carried out on August 9-16 as the prison’s revenge for his denunciation about violations and bribery of prison’s staff, including Major Le Van Yen, Lieutenant Huynh Van Hoa and Senior Lieutenants Nguyen Van Em and Nguyen Quang Que.
During the punishment periods, Ngoc was held in a solitary cell on a dirty cement floor. The prison’s authorities feed him with very little rice twice every day. The fettering was all day and night so he was forced to pee in a pot placed near him. He was not allowed to wash his teethes and take a shower during the entire periods.
His family was also not allowed to send food supplements for him for two months.
Colonel Nguyen Hoang Tuan, chief of Chi Hoa Prison, instead of launching investigation against his staff as Ngoc denunciated, submitted an untrue report to the Supreme People’s Court saying the victim conducted activities against the state.
As the results of the prison’s inhumane treatments, Ngoc is suffering from a number of diseases, including dizziness, stunned limbs, knee pain, scabies and constipation.
The degrading treatments such as against Ngoc are not rare in Vietnam’s prisons, especially against prisoners of conscience. In addition, prisoners have been forced to work without being paid, and beaten by prisons’ staff and criminal inmates.
Mr. Ngoc was sentenced to three years in prison and other three years under house arrest by the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court on October 5 on charge of anti-state propaganda under Article 88 of the Penal Code for his online writing. For more information about him, you can read in our website: http://www.vietnamhumanrightsdefenders.net/category/nguyen-dinh-ngoc-nguyen-ngoc-gia/
Conditions in Vietnam’s prisons are very hard, according to the New York-based Human Rights Watch, especially for political prisoners. Prisoners are subjects to torture and degrading treatments as well as forced labor, many former prisoners of conscience said.
Amnesty International documented torture and ill-treatment of prisoners of conscience in Vietnam in a report entitled “Prisons Within Prisons: Torture and ill-treatment of prisoners of conscience in Viet Nam”, see: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa41/4187/2016/en/.
The story was posted on: http://www.vietnamhumanrightsdefenders.net/2016/12/15/political-blogger-nguyen-ngoc-gia-tortured-prison-his-health-under-critical-situation/
Vietnam Human Rights Network |