Jailed Vietnamese Land Activist Held Under Harsh Conditions: Daughter
Can Thi Theu is staying in a cramped cell with sick inmates despite being a
political prisoner.
RFA | 2021-05-17
Vietnamese land-rights activist Can Thi Theu is being held under harsh jail
conditions following her sentencing to eight years in prison for criticizing the
government over its handling of a deadly land-rights clash last year, her
daughter said Monday.
Trinh Thi Thao, Theu’s daughter, told RFA’s Vietnamese Service that her mother
is currently in a police detention center in the seat of northern Vietnam’s Hoa
Binh province, where she has been placed in “small cells” with “HIV-infected
prisoners,” despite being jailed for political reasons.
“The cells are so small, only seven square meters (75 square feet), but houses
up to 13 people,” she said, adding that she had received updates about the
condition from one of her mother’s fellow inmates.
“My mother has to share it with infected people. [It’s summer now in Vietnam
but] prisoners don’t have enough water to use, and the cell doors are always
closed, making it very hot and stuffy. It’s very cruel to treat prisoners that
way. My family is very indignant.”
During her trial on May 5, Theu told the court that when her cellmates fought,
she had attempted to separate them and was injured in the fighting, causing her
to bleed. Her request to be tested afterward for possible infection was turned
down by detention center officials, she said at the time.
Thao also said that her family had been encountering difficulty in sending foods
and other items to her mother.
Attempts by RFA to contact the Hoa Binh Police Department and the city’s Police
Detention Center by telephone went unanswered Monday.
2020 arrest
A well-known activist in Hanoi, Theu was arrested on June 24, 2020, with her
sons Trinh Ba Tu and Trinh Ba Phuong on charges of “creating, storing, and
disseminating information, documents, items and publications opposing the
Socialist Republic of Vietnam” under Article 117 of Vietnam’s Penal Code.
The three family members had been outspoken in social media postings about the
Jan. 9, 2020 clash in Dong Tam commune in which 3,000 police stormed barricaded
protesters’ homes at a construction site about 25 miles south of the capital,
killing a village elder.
They had also offered information to foreign embassies and other international
groups to try to raise awareness of the incident.
Three police officers also died in the clash.
Theu and her son Trinh Ba Tu, who worked to raise awareness of the socially and
politically explosive issue of land grabs in the country of 95 million people,
were sentenced on May 5 to eight years in prison each for “creating, storing and
disseminating information and materials against the Socialist Republic of
Vietnam” under Article 117 of Vietnam’s Penal Code. Their jail time will be
followed by three years each on probation.
Immediately following the trial, Theu and her son appealed the verdict.
Call for international pressure
Speaking to RFA on Monday, Trinh called on the international community to
pressure Vietnam’s government to release her mother and brother.
“If many people speak up, they will stop doing cruel things, including detaining
[healthy prisoners] with HIV/AIDS-infected prisoners, and my mother and younger
brother will be kept in better conditions,” she said.
In a statement following her trial, rights group Amnesty International condemned
the sentences handed down to Theu—who had been jailed twice before in 2014 and
2016 for protesting government-ordered seizures of land—and her son, calling
their conviction “a travesty of justice.”
While all land in Vietnam is ultimately held by the state, land confiscations
have become a flashpoint as residents accuse the government of pushing small
landholders aside in favor of lucrative real estate projects, and of paying too
little in compensation to farming families displaced by development.
Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English
by Joshua Lipes.
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