Two prisoners of conscience were treated badly in prison for helping their fellow prisoners or refusing to wear prison uniforms. Relatives of these prisoners of conscience told reporters of Radio Free Asia (RFA) by telephone on October 10.
Prisoner of conscience Huynh Thuc Vy told her family that she was beaten by guards in Gia Trung Prison camp in the Central Highlands province of Gia Lai.
Huynh Trong Hieu, Huynh Thuc Vy’s younger brother, told RFA that at the meeting on October 9, the female prisoner of conscience informed her daughter about her beating.
“About the last five minutes of the talk, Vy was able to hold her two young children again. Ms. Vy whispered into Tue Nha’s daughter’s ear, ‘Your mother was beaten here and strangled by the officers. You should inform our family to notify lawyer Dang Dinh Manh to save me.’ My niece Tue Nha told my father and me so.”
Mr. Hieu said that his niece Tue Nha, 6 years old, reported on the way home and the family only knew such information but did not know why his sister was beaten in the prison camp.
RFA reporter dealt with Gia Trung Prison’s phone number but no one answered.
Mr. Hieu also said that two months ago, during a visit on August 10, because she was not allowed to hug her two young children by the prison, Ms. Huynh Thuc Vy took the prison cell phone and threw it on the ground, breaking totally the phone.
However, a month later, the family met Ms. Huynh Thuc Vy and was informed by her that she had not been disciplined and was treated normally.
He suspects that his sister’s beatings have something to do with Huynh Thuc Vy helping some other prisoners, by sharing food or giving their relatives’ phone numbers to his family so that he can help them. His family contacted and informed him about their condition in prison.
Ms. Vy had told her family before that the warden of Gia Trung Prison camp did not want her to help other inmates like that.
Mr. Hieu said that the family and lawyer Dang Dinh Manh made a petition to the Vietnamese authorities to request clarification of Ms. Huynh Thuc Vy’s accusation and investigation if there was a beating.
In 2018, Ms. Huynh Thuc Vy (37 years old) was sentenced to 30 months in prison after spraying paint on the red flag with a yellow star – Vietnam’s national flag. At that time, she was granted a postponement of the prison sentence due to her young children but was forced to execute the sentence on November 30, 2021.
Meanwhile, the family of prisoner of conscience Le Dinh Luong on October 10 said that during a regular visit on October 7, he could not see his relatives. The reason given by Nam Ha Prison was that he refused to wear the prison uniform.
Nguyen Thi Xoan, Le Dinh Luong’s daughter-in-law, told RFA:
“There was a cadre who was also hostile to my family and said, ‘Mr. Luong doesn’t want to see his family.’ I asked him why he didn’t want to see his family, and this cadre said ‘because Mr. Luong refused to wear prison clothes, so the prison did not allow him to come out to see us.”
According to this daughter-in-law, when the family wanted to deliver food to Mr. Luong, the prison side refused and said that Mr. Luong was being disciplined so he could not receive supplies. The prison side refused to provide information about the punishment against him and ignored the family’s request to meet with the superintendent.
According to Ms. Xoan, the family is very worried about Mr. Luong, because in August he told if one day he couldn’t see his family, it would mean “there is something inside.”
We could not contact Nam Ha Prison camp to verify information about Mr. Luong.
Mr. Le Dinh Luong, 56, is an environmental and human rights activist who spoke out about the environmental disaster that caused mass fish deaths in the Central Coast region caused by the Taiwanese Formosa steel factory in 2016.
He was arrested in mid-2017 on charges of subversion under Article 79 of the 1999 Penal Code. In August of the following year, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison and five years of probation.
In October 2020, he went on a hunger strike for several days in Nam Ha Detention Center because the prison did not allow him to use the Bible and did not allow him to use pen and paper. At the same time, he also objected to the harsh living conditions from the heavily polluted water source in the prison, and the dusty air from the quarry near the prison.
He stopped his hunger strike after the prison met some of his conditions.
Thoibao.de (Translated)
