Former Vietnam Prisoner- Activist Attacked after Meeting with Prison Authorities

Mr. Tam (second from right) and other Vietnamese activists at a reception given by U.S. Congressman Scott Peters in Washington in June 2015

Mr. Tam (second from right) and other Vietnamese activists at a reception given by U.S. Congressman Scott Peters in Washington in June 2015.

He believed that the thugs were hired by the prison’s authorities, particularly by Colonel Luong Van Tuyen, head of the prison. The thugs stopped his scooter and beat him, took all his items including documentation, electronic devices such as smartphone and camera, and threw them into a river, and ran away.

By Vu Quoc Ngu | Aug 25, 2015

A Vietnamese activist was assaulted by thugs on August 24 shortly after a meeting with authorities of a prison where he was held one year ago.

Mr. Truong Minh Tam, who was serving his one-year prison term in Prison No. 5 in Yen Dinh district in the central province of Thanh Hoa, said that he was beaten by two young motorbike riders at a place about one kilometer from the prison.

He believed that the thugs were hired by the prison’s authorities, particularly by Colonel Luong Van Tuyen, head of the prison. The thugs stopped his scooter and beat him, took all his items including documentation, electronic devices such as smartphone and camera, and threw them into a river, and ran away.

Mr. Tam, who received light injuries from the assault, said that the attackers strived to destroy his items which contain important evidences for his illegal trial and the prison’s inhumane treatment against him.

Earlier on the day, the Hanoi-based social activist went to the prison and demanded the authorities to give back all documentation related to his trial and his serving in the prison. When he completed his term on Oct. 7 last year, the prison’s authorities refused to hand over these documentations to him on the day of being freed.

Tam, who had financial disputes with his business partners, was arrested on October 7, 2013. His arrest and trial were politically motivated due to his social activities which aim to promote multi-party democracy and human rights in the communist nation.

During his stay in Prison No. 5, he was under inhumane treatment of the officers and guards. They put him in solitary cell many times without reasons, Tam said.

Nearly one year after being released, Tam came back to the prison to take his dossier which can be used to challenge the validity of his trial as well as the bad treatment of the prison against him and other political prisoners.

However, the prison’s authorities have tried not to return these documentations, seeking to hand over them to him after two years and make his challenges impossible, according to Vietnam’s law.

Mr. Tam, who is a member of the unsanctioned pro-democracy Vietnam Pathway, like many other Vietnamese prisoners of conscience, was tried by courts which violated fair trial standards. Prisoners, especially those who have been convicted for exercising their rights of freedom of expression, have been treated like animals with bad-quality food, a lack of hygiene and proper medical treatment, and tiny rooms without windows.

“Vietnamese prisoners of conscience are treated like animals. Their food is tainted. They’re put into a 2-4 meter square cell with another criminal prisoners, who serve as a special surveying camera assigned by communist party leaders. Prisoners of conscience are not allowed access newspapers, books, TV or any other media. They are not allowed to receive letters or they have really limited access to letters,” Tam said in an interview to the Free Asia radio on June 15.

In June, Mr. Tam was invited to the U.S., where he participated in a hearing before the U.S.’s Congress. Together with Pastor Nguyen Manh Hung and Nguyen Van Loi, he presented the current hard conditions in Vietnam’s prisons and inhumane treatment of prisons’ authorities against prisoners of conscience before the U.S. Congress.

The trio also reported a number of evidences on on-going harassments, intimidations as well as persecutions of the communist government against local political dissidents and human rights activists.

They called on the U.S. Congress to pressure Vietnam, demanding the communist government to stop their persecutions and release all prisoners of conscience, who have suffered from inhumane treatments by prisons’ authorities.