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November, 21 2020
Vietnam Human Rights Award 2020 Winners Announced
Little Saigon, CA. USA - Due to the constraints of the COVID-19 epidemic, this year, the Vietnam Human Rights Network announced the results of the Vietnam Human Rights Award 2020 via the Internet instead of a press conference as usual. The event was held at 8 AM (California time, 5 PM in Western Europe, and 11 PM in Vietnam) on Saturday, November 21, 2020, and live broadcast via Facebook and Youtube. [The event video is available here: PART 1 - PART 2] Present at the meeting were Dr. Nguyen Ba Tung, Professor Nguyen Chinh Ket, Fr. Dang Huu Nam, and Atty. Nguyen Van Dai. The Award winners’ representatives were also invited to the meeting. They are Ms. Nguyen Thi Tinh, wife of prisoner of conscience Nguyen Nang Tinh; Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Hong, sister of prisoner of conscience Nguyen Van Hoa; and journalist JB Nguyen Huu Vinh, representative of Vietnam Association of Independent Journalists. There were two other special guests, Professor Nguyen Thanh Giau, Chairman of the Vietnamese Inter-Faith Council in the USA, and Engineer Do Nhu Dien, Director of Dap Loi Song Nui Radio.
Established
in 2002, the Vietnam Human Rights Award has been bestowed to the individuals and
organizations who have made outstanding contributions to and have demonstrated
influence on promoting justice and human rights movements in Vietnam. It is also
an opportunity for Vietnamese in the Diaspora to show their solidarity with
those who have engaged in the relentless fighting for the Vietnamese people’s
fundamental rights.
This year’s
Vietnam Human Rights Award was presented to prisoner of conscience Nguyen Nang
Tinh, prisoner of conscience Nguyen Van Hoa, and the Vietnam Independent
Journalist Association. The following are the brief highlights of the 2020
Vietnam Human Rights Award winners:
NGUYỄN NĂNG TĨNH
As a teacher, he dedicated himself to hand over to the
youths not only musical skills but also love for their fatherland, the spirit of
transcendence, and respect for human dignity.
Although busy with teaching, Nguyen Nang Tinh has
devoted himself to several social activities and fighting for justice and human
rights.
He was one of the main pillars of the candlelight
vigils for Justice and Peace and prisoners of conscience in the Vinh Diocese. He
played a leading role in mobilizing people to take to the streets to protest
against the Formosa disaster, China’s invasion of the islands, and the Special
Economic Zone Law.
Teacher Nguyen Nang Tinh is the companion of nearly 30
families of prisoners of conscience in the Vinh Diocese, most of whom are his
close and like-minded friends. There was no family of prisoners of conscience in
the area that did not receive Mr. Tinh’s support. He was always present to
reassure and help those families overcome troubled circumstances, panic,
anxiety, and fear as soon as one of their loved ones was arrested.
Mr. Tinh is a friend of the poor and marginalized. He
joined the Life Protection Group, Human Development Fund, and the Catholic
Communications in the Vinh Diocese.
Because of Tinh’s praiseworthy activities, the
Communist security apparatus has harassed and hampered him no less than 100
times by inviting him to “work” with the authorities or going to his school to
investigate and intimidate him. The harassment also included house watch,
cutting off of electricity and water, detention, and beatings.
Finally, on May 29, 2019, teacher Nguyen Nang Tinh was
kidnapped by the Vietnamese police while traveling with his two young children.
On November 5, 2019, the People’s Court of Nghe An Province sentenced him to 11
years in prison and five years of house arrest for “violating the people’s
administration and socialist regime to oppose the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,
defaming the Party and State leaders, inciting protests against the government,
posting documents with fabricated contents, causing confusion among people, and
providing fabricated information to cause conflicts between the people and
public agencies ...”
Despite severe threats and mistreatments during his
imprisonment, teacher Nguyen Nang Tinh boldly declared in front of the
Vietnamese communist court:
“I aspire for a free and democratic
country. I worry about my country and my people’s destiny. I worry about the
contaminated living environment. I cannot be indifferent and resign myself to
the risk of losing the national sovereignty and the threat of Chinese invasion.
“No matter how high the sentence is, be it
ten years, 20 years, even the death penalty, I won’t change my mind.”
Several foreign governments, including the United
States, Canada, Norway, and Czechoslovakia..., and human rights organizations
such as Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International (AI), and Reporter
Without Borders (RSF) have expressed concerns about teacher Tinh’s arrest.
Currently, the Media Legal Defense Initiative (MLDI) lawyers represent Mr.
Tinh’s family to file with the United Nations Working Group on Arbitration
Investigation (UNWGAD).
Teacher Nguyen Nang Tinh is an example of the
relentless pursuit of non-violent fighting for justice, human rights, and
national self-determination. He deserves to be endowed with the 2020 Vietnam
Human Rights Award.
NGUYEN VAN HOA
As an enthusiastic youth committed to the community,
Nguyen Van Hoa has taught himself in the field of information technology with
the desire to contribute to building a developed and democratic Vietnam. During
the environmental disaster caused by the Formosa steel plant in some Central
provinces in 2016, Hoa reached out to the sites to record the environmental
crimes and the sufferance of the victims. He also assisted the victims in
gathering evidence to denounce the crimes and bring the cases before the court.
In addition to that, Hoa used modern media further to
spread the Formosa spill disaster to the outside world. He was the first person
to use a flycam to capture tens of thousands of people protesting in the Formosa
steel plant in October 2016. Nguyen Van Hoa is a citizen journalist working with
RFA’s Vietnamese Service and has provided videos about people’s protests against
the Formosa company in the central region of Vietnam.
Vietnamese police arrested Hoa when recording people’s
protests before the Ky Anh district court on January 11, 2017. On November 27,
2017, after a brief and sneaky trial without the participation of lawyers and
the presence of relatives, the Ha Tinh Court sentenced Nguyen Van Hoa to 7 years
in prison and 3 years of probation on charges of “conducting propaganda against
the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.”
Nguyen Van Hoa was repeatedly beaten and held in
solitary confinement by correctional officers at An Diem Detention Center in
Quang Nam Province, so he went on several hunger strikes to protest.
Correctional officers also used corporal punishment to compel Hoa and another
prisoner of conscience, Nguyen Viet Dung, to testify against environmental
activist Le Dinh Luong. However, both Hoa and Dung recanted at the trial.
Therefore, the correctional officers assaulted them for revenge.
In the face of the unfair trial and the brutal
suppression of freelance journalist Nguyen Van Hoa, many Vietnamese and
international organizations have spoken out; especially:
- On December 14, 2017, the European
National Assembly passed an urgent resolution requiring the Vietnamese communist
to release young activist Nguyen Van Hoa and other imprisoned Vietnamese
citizens for voicing their point of view.
- On August 20, 2018, the Committee to
Protect Journalist (CPJ) condemned the abuse of film journalist Nguyen Van Hoa
and urged Vietnamese authorities to stop the beating and harassing journalists
in prison.
- On January 18, 2019, Freedom Now
announced the nomination of journalist Nguyen Van Hoa for UNESCO’s Guillermo
Cano World Press Freedom Award.
- On May 24, 2019, Amnesty International
called the case of Nguyen Van Hoa being beaten by police at An Diem detention
center, causing injury and then being put in solitary confinement as “extremely
serious.”
- On August 15, 2019, the United Nations
Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) called on the Vietnamese communist
authorities to release journalist Nguyen Van Hoa.
- On September 24, 2019, US Congressman
Alan Lowenthal officially adopted journalist Nguyen Van Hoa as a prisoner of
conscience through the Defending Freedoms Project of the Tom Lantos Human Rights
Commission.
The Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam
IJAVN’s official organ is the online Vietnam Times
newspaper, at https://vietnamthoibao.org/. The newspaper is the medium for
its members to express their views, voice their opinions on social injustice,
denounce the authorities’ wrongdoings and human rights violations, and convey
news relevant to the government repression of human rights activists.
Since its foundation, IJAVN has achieved several
special activities, including:
- Organizing and attending discussion
seminars on important societal and national issues;
- Raising timely alerts about incidents of
harassment against people and journalists;
- Networking and cooperating with mass
media domestic and international non-government organizations;
- Making statements to support movements
for freedom of speech, freedom of politics, environmental protection, and
national heritage;
- Three members of IJAVN, including Bui
Minh Quoc in Da Lat, Nguyen Tuong Thuy in Hanoi, and Nguyen Van Thanh in Da
Nang, independently ran for the 2016 National Assembly;
- Continuing to maintain the operation of
the Vietnam Times newspaper. IJAVN has faced severe acts of repression because of the activities that the Vietnamese communist authorities deem dangerous to the regime. Several active members have been imprisoned, including:
- Dr. Pham Chi Dung, the IJAVN’s founding
member, and the president, was arrested on November 29, 2019.
- Journalist Nguyen Tuong Thuy, the IJAVN’s
vice president, was arrested on May 24, 2020.
- Journalist Le Huu Minh Tuan was arrested
on June 12, 2020.
On November 10, 2020, the Vietnamese communist
government prosecuted Dr. Pham Chi Dung, journalist Nguyen Tuong Thuy, and
journalist Le Huu Minh Tuan on charges of “ making, Storing, spreading
information, materials, items to oppose the State of Socialist Republic of
Vietnam” under Clause 2, Article 117 of the Penal Code. With these allegations,
all of them could face sentences of 10 to 20 years in prison.
Furthermore, at least ten other members of the IJAVN
were summoned and interrogated; its website and Facebook page were frequently
locked down and attacked by hackers. Facebook has removed many posts.
Although having been in service for a short period, the
IJAVN has built a respectable reputation at home and abroad through sound and
impressive critical voices. In particular, the leaders of IJAVN had reacted very
bravely and intelligently when they were arrested and confronted by the police
and other government officials.
Two members of IJAVN, President Pham Chi Dung and Vice
President Le Ngoc Thanh were named “Information
Heroes” by Reporters without Borders in 2014.
For its valuable contributions to the fight for human
rights, especially the right to freedom of speech and the hardships its members
have gone through, IJAVN deserves the Vietnam Human Rights Award for the Year
2020.
Vietnam Human Rights Network |
