Imprisoned Mother Mushroom Transferred Far from Her Native Nha Trang

Two children of Mother Mushroom protest the transfer to Thanh Hoa province, about 920 km from their native city of Nha Trang

Defend the Defenders, February 19, 2018

Vietnam’s authorities have transferred jailed prominent human rights defender Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh to Prison No. 5 in the central province of Thanh Hoa, about 920 km from her native province of Khanh Hoa.

In the morning of February 12, four days ahead of the Lunar New Year, Ms. Nguyen Thi Tuyet Lan, Quynh’s mother went to visit her and brought some additional supplies in a detention facility in Nha Trang city. However, upon arrival, she was informed that Quynh, a well-known blogger with penname Me Nam (or Mother Mushroom), had been moved to the new prison facility which is famous due to its inhumane treatment of prisoners, especially prisoners of conscience.

Ms. Lan said that authorities in Khanh Hoa did not inform her about the transfer in her previous visit on February 5.

The move will make difficult for the 60-year-old mother to visit her daughter given the long distance while she has to take care for Quynh’s two children, one is seven and another is twelve.

Quynh was arrested in October 10, 2016 on charge of “conducting anti-state propaganda” under Article 88 of the country’s 1999 Penal Code for her peaceful activities and articles about police brutality, China’s violations of the country’s sovereignty and environmental pollution, especially the environmental disaster in 2016 caused by the illegal discharge of toxic industrial waste of the Taiwanese Formosa steel plant in the central coast.

In 2017, Quynh was convicted and sentenced to ten years in prison. Her conviction has been condemned by many foreign democratic governments and international human rights organizations as well as Vietnamese citizens (for more information on Quynh’s case, please go to: /category/nguyen-ngoc-nhu-quynh-me-nam/)

In Vietnam, it is a common practice to send prisoners of conscience to prisons far from their families along with other inhumane treatment measures such as solitary confinement, low-quality food and water, bad hygiene, limit family visit and use of criminal inmates to attack prisoners of conscience, as well as forced labor.

According to Defend the Defenders’ counting, Vietnam is holding around 180 prisoners of conscience.