Police Kidnap Wife of Former Prisoner of Conscience, Robbing Her After Hours of Interrogation

Former prisoner of conscience Vi Duc Hoi

By Defend the Defenders, December 20, 2017

Former prisoner of conscience Vi Duc Hoi from Vietnam’s northern province of Lang Son reported that his wife has been kidnapped, interrogated and robbed by local police.

Mr. Hoi, who was arrested in 2010 and sentenced to five years in prison on allegation of “conducting anti-state propaganda” under Article 88 of Vietnam’s 1999 Penal Code a year later, said his wife was detained by a group of people who introduced themselves as officers from the Ministry of Public Security when she went out of a bank where she withdrew VND4.5 million (around $200).

The kidnappers took her to a police station in Huu Lung district where they confiscated her money and interrogated her for hours about the sender.

After holding her nearly three hours, the kidnappers released her at 7 PM of Wednesday, said Mr. Hoi, who is a former communist member and ex-head of the communist party’s school in the province but was fired after publicly called for multi-party democracy.

Since being release in October 2015, Mr. Hoi has been under close surveillance of the local police. On May 19, police in Hanoi detained him when he went to the capital city to meet with local activists. He was deported to his native Huu Lung district after being held in hours in police station in Hanoi.

Robbing money from relatives of activists is common act of Vietnam’s security forces. Mrs. Nguyen Thi Lanh, the wife of imprisoned pro-democracy activist Nguyen Trung Ton said she was also robbed by police in Thanh Hoa province after she withdrew from a bank.

Vietnam has little tolerance to government critics. Local security forces have persecuted, harassed and intimidated activists and their relatives.