NguyenÐanQue
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Dr Nguyen Dan Que Wednesday April 14 1999 Jail 'abuse' of political prisoners VIETNAM by KEN STIER in Hanoi Dr Que shone the spotlight on the darkest recesses of the tough penal system in one of his first interviews since release after 10 years. He told of beatings, malnourishment and psychological abuse suffered by his fellow inmates. He claimed the prisoners were being held in the Z30A prison labour institution in Xuan Loc district of Dong Nai province, about 80km outside Ho Chi Minh City - all part of a system that must now be opened up to inspection, he said. Most Western diplomats list at most a few dozen political prisoners for the entire country but Dr Que's account suggests that much higher estimates put forward by overseas Vietnamese organisations are closer to the truth. Prisoners of conscience include roughly a dozen members from each of the main communities of Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists and Dong Cong (a Vietnamese Christian denomination), together with purely political prisoners. "There are still many other political prisoners assimilated with the common criminals," he said. "The [camp commanders] are very demagogic, you know." Some political prisoners have recently been separated for their safety but communication remains difficult. "You never have a state of calm in your mind or spiritually, you always have to cope with some problem in prison, problems they create intentionally," Dr Que said. Corruption is rampant with a "canteen system" under which inmates can use money from families to supplement the inadequate prison diet that must fuel up to eight hours' labour, digging ditches or working in tobacco fields. Another abuse is the use of former policemen, now inmates, to discipline prisoners. "They want to use their experience at controlling people through intimidation and beatings and they give them all sorts of privileges but we must fight against this because it leads to so many abuses." Dr Que is all too familiar with the intentional oppression of Vietnam's present prison system. After medical studies in Europe funded by a World Health Organisation scholarship he declined a job offer from the United Nations and returned to teach at the Saigon Medical School in 1974. After the communists took over in 1975, he refused to leave the country and soon began publishing an underground newspaper calling for human rights. By 1978 he had been sentenced, without trial, to 10 years in prison. After an intensive campaign by Amnesty International he was finally released from jail in 1988. But shortly after forming the Non-Violent Movement for Human Rights in Vietnam in 1990 and calling on Hanoi to hold free and fair elections, he was arrested again. Forbidden to speak during a brief court appearance, Dr Que was sentenced to 20 years' hard labour. Again the subject of substantial international attention, he was released after 10 years in an amnesty that freed about two dozen prominent dissidents. Dr Que had to endure the additional indignity of solitary confinement for more than 6.5 years in total - including five months chained day and night in a small, dank "disciplinary cell". Prisoners are generally not able to take a bath for two to three months and most are denied mosquito nets despite the threat of malaria. "This is unacceptable," he says vehemently. "The conditions are unbelievable in the disciplinary cells, they can beat you or put salt in the rice and you only get one litre of water for a 24-hour period." Although released and living with his wife and niece in a modest home in the Cholon district of Ho Chi Minh City, the sense of unease continues. During the interview he regularly peered through the front gate of the house, checking for undercover police. His phone and computer are tapped and he is followed whenever he ventures outside. But as before he refuses to leave, even though he has relatives, including two children, in the United States. "Certainly I continue to do my work, work for my people, for my country." Ken Stier is a correspondent for Deutsche Presse Agentur |