When Phan Kim Khanh, a former member of President Barack Obama’s Southeast Asia Young Leaders Initiative, was serving a six-year sentence in Vietnam, little did he imagine that guards would force him to work six hours a day without compensation.
Authorities in the one-party communist state arrested Khanh, now 30, in 2017 for running two independent online magazines in Vietnam.
After the press freedom and anti-corruption activist was released on March 21, he told Radio Free Asia that prison guards told him and other inmates they had to work without pay, and threatened with punishing them if they refused.
“The prison guards forced us to work more than six hours a day from 7 am to 10:30 am and from 1 pm to 4:30 pm,” he said. “Our job was usually to weave rattan or bamboo products, but without protective gear.”
The handmade products appeared to be destined for export to European Union countries, although the guards never mentioned payments for the prisoners, Khanh said.
Vietnamese law stipulates that inmates must receive some compensation for the work they do in prison.
The guards punished inmates who refused to work or worked passively by not letting them see their families or receive items from their families. They were also not considered for review for reduced sentences, Khanh said.
Even when political prisoners agreed to work without compensation but still refused to admit guilt to the crimes with which they were charged, authorities did not consider reducing their sentences, he said.
A court in Thai Nguyen province, north of Hanoi, sentenced Khanh to six years in prison and four years probation for violating Article 88 of Vietnam’s Penal Code, which prohibits anti-state propaganda. The offense is considered a national security offense and carries a penalty of up to 20 years in jail.
The Vietnamese authorities have widely used the article to punish human rights defenders, freelance journalists and writers, and others who have peacefully exercised their human rights, making it a crime for them to express an opinion or question government policy, according to human rights defenders. .
In February, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said that Khanh’s arrest was arbitrary and that Vietnam violated many basic rights under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, two treaties of which the country is a signatory. .
Young Leaders Initiative
Authorities arrested Khanh months before he graduated from Thai Nguyen University, where he was president of the international relations department’s student association.
Khanh was also a popular emcee for events at the university and a member of the Southeast Asia Young Leaders Initiative.
Obama launched the program in 2013 for emerging leaders in Southeast Asia to strengthen partnerships with them, develop their skills as effective civic, economic, and nongovernmental leaders in the region, and encourage them to collaborate with others to solve regional and global challenges.
The more than 100,000 members of the program participated in educational and professional exchanges in the United States and attended skill-building workshops in Southeast Asia.
Around the same time, Khanh established and operated independent newspapers. Penny pinchereither Corruptionand Tuan Vietnameither vietnam weeklywhich dealt with political issues in the country, including the rampant corruption of its leaders.
Khanh, who served his sentence in Ba Sao The prison in Ha Nam province, south of Hanoi, said inmates suffered from breathing polluted air from a nearby garbage incineration, though guards ignored their complaints.
Inmates also received only basic health checks at the prison clinic and those with serious illnesses that required specific treatment would sometimes not be approved for treatment at outside hospitals.
Guards allowed Khanh, who is a Roman Catholic, to read the Bible his family sent him only once a week in the prison library.
“Just that,” he told RFA. “Other rights, such as visits by priests or meetings of some faithful, were not allowed.”
Khanh also said that prisoner of conscience Le Thanh Tung, who is serving time in the same prison for calling for democracy in Vietnam, suffered a stomach ailment after going on a hunger strike on March 19, though the authorities will not allow it. for him to be treated in a hospital.
Tung, a former soldier and freelance journalist also known as Le Ai Quoc, had previously been convicted under Article 88 for his association with a banned coalition of political groups advocating for democratic reform in the communist state.
Authorities released Tung in June 2015 but arrested him again in December. A year later, he was sentenced to 12 years for “activities aimed at overthrowing the people’s administration” under article 79 of the Penal Code.
In a related development on Monday, Human Rights Watch called on Vietnam to drop all charges against land rights activist Truong Van Dung, 65, who is due to stand trial Tuesday in Hanoi, for criticizing the government.
Police arrested Truong in May 2022 on charges of “conducting propaganda against the state” under article 88. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.
“Truong Van Dung is the latest in a long line of human rights defenders silenced by the Vietnamese government for protesting human rights violations and advocating for reform,” Phil Robertson, the organization’s deputy director for Asia, said in a statement. release.
“Democratic governments that forge closer ties with Vietnam should speak out loudly in their support and call on Vietnam to release all political prisoners and take genuine steps toward reform.”
Translated by Anna Vu for Vietnamese FRG. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Matt Reed.
