Vietnamese Dissident Meets With Lawyer For First Time Since April Arrest
RFA | 2020-11-05
Vietnamese democracy advocate Tran Duc Thach, jailed for his writings exposing
government corruption and human rights abuses, has met with his lawyer for the
first time since his arrest nearly seven months ago, his lawyer said on
Thursday.
Tran was arrested April 24, 2020 and charged with engaging in “activities aimed
at overthrowing the People’s Government” in violation of Article 109 of the
Vietnamese Criminal Codes, likely for his involvement with the online
Brotherhood for Democracy advocacy group.
The Brotherhood for Democracy is not recognized by the Vietnamese government,
and many of its members have been imprisoned since its founding in 2013.
Though a formal police investigation of Tran ended months ago, and his
indictment has since been forwarded to the courts, Tran’s lawyer was only
recently allowed to meet with him at his detention center in Nghe An province
and was blocked from making a photocopy of the indictment, attorney Ha Huy Son
told RFA’s Vietnamese Service on Nov. 5.
“I came to the court today, but they only allowed me to look at the indictment
and not to copy it,” Ha said.
“They told me that because the case involves issues of state secrets and
security, I won’t be able to make a photocopy unless I get permission for the
judge at the Supreme People’s Court,” Ha said, adding that he was able in the
time allowed to him only to make a written copy of certain information.
Ha said Tran told him he is now being charged with two offenses in connection
with his writings on Facebook and his activities with the Brotherhood for
Democracy from 2013 to 2016. Tran is also in ill health in jail and suffers from
gout, high blood pressure, and ulcerative colitis, Ha said.
Born in 1952 in Nghe An, Tran served with North Vietnamese forces during the
Vietnam War and has been an activist for human rights and democracy in Vietnam
for many years.
In his book Obsessive Grave, Tran tells the story of how North Vietnamese
soldiers killed hundreds of innocents at Tan Lap commune in Dong Nai province’s
Xuan Loc district during the final campaign of the war that ended with communist
forces’ victory on April 30, 1975.
Tran was earlier sentenced to three years in jail in October 2009 for
“conducting propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” along with Vu
Van Hung and Pham Van Troi.
The group says that prisoners of conscience in Vietnam are routinely denied
legal representation, medical treatment, and family visits, and are often
subjected to solitary confinement and punitive transfers far from their family
homes.
"At least 32 individuals in 2018 and 2019, four of whom are women, were denied
family visits or communications or were arbitrarily transferred to remote
prisons," the rights group said, with some prisoners "transferred or denied
contact multiple times in one year."
And though the use of torture by police is prohibited under Vietnamese law, the
lack of an independent judicial system or other checks against the country’s
public security forces “allow torture and inhumane treatment of dissenters and
political activists to persist as a common practice in Vietnam,” the group says
in its report.
"The 88 Project has identified at least 15 individuals subjected to
psychological and/or physical pain [during the reporting period]: 10 in 2018,
four in 2019, and one in both years. Two were women," the rights group said.
Medical treatment is frequently used by authorities as “a bargaining tool” to
coerce confessions, and Vietnam’s prisons are often unsanitary, the group said,
adding, “Unclean food, overcrowding, lack of access to potable water, poor
sanitation, and lack of lighting remain serious problems.”
Vietnam has increasingly rounded up independent journalists, bloggers, and other
dissident voices in recent months as authorities already intolerant of dissent
seek to stifle critics in the run-up to the ruling Communist Party congress in
January.
Vietnam Human Rights Network |