{"id":48252,"date":"2024-03-13T21:19:35","date_gmt":"2024-03-14T04:19:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sweet-pascal.52-27-215-206.plesk.page\/vietnam-police-summon-political-prisoners-wives\/"},"modified":"2024-03-13T21:19:35","modified_gmt":"2024-03-14T04:19:35","slug":"vietnam-police-summon-political-prisoners-wives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/vietnam-police-summon-political-prisoners-wives\/","title":{"rendered":"Vietnam police summon political prisoners\u2019 wives"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vietnam police have been summoning the wives of political prisoners for questioning over the past week, leading one lawyer to suggest that the Ministry of Public Security has launched a new harassment campaign against relatives of prisoners of conscience.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to information obtained by Radio Free Asia, police summoned the wives of four prisoners this week: Trinh Thi Nhung, wife of Bui Van Thuan; Le Thi Ha, wife of Dang Dang Phuoc; Do Thi Thu, wife of Trinh Ba Phuong; and Nguyen Thi Tinh, wife of Nguyen Nang Tinh.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The women were questioned about their social media activities.<\/span><\/p>\n

They also summoned Nguyen Thi Mai, daughter of female prisoner Nguyen Thi Tam.<\/span><\/p>\n

The five prisoners are serving sentences of between five and 10 years, all for the crime of \u201cpropaganda against the state.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

On Tuesday, police also summoned Le Thi Kieu Oanh, wife of former prisoner Pham Minh Hoang, following her trip to France to see her husband.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2017, Hoang was stripped of his Vietnamese citizenship and deported after serving a 17-month prison sentence for \u201cactivities aimed at overthrowing the government.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Questioned about Facebook<\/h4>\n

Trinh Thi Nhung was summoned for questioning by the <\/span>Nghi Son Town Police in Thanh Hoa province<\/span> on Wednesday morning.<\/span><\/p>\n

They said they believed she had used the Facebook account \u201cNhung Trinh\u201d to sign a petition calling for the release of human rights activist Nguyen Thuy Hanh, who has cancer and is being held in a secure mental facility.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nhung told the police the account was not hers and refused to sign a statement.<\/span><\/p>\n

Do Thi Thu was asked to visit Ha Dong District Police in Hanoi on Thursday, also in connection with Facebook but she refused.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to meet them there because they’ve invited me so many times about the same thing,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe investigator asked me if the [Thu Do] Facebook account was mine.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey told me not to share articles related to prisoners of conscience.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Le Thi Ha was summoned by the Internal Security Department of Dak Lak Provincial Police.<\/span><\/p>\n

They asked her to come in on Thursday to provide information about her use of social media. She told RFA she would attend even though she doesn\u2019t have a Facebook account.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI find it annoying,\u201d she told RFA Vietnamese. \u201cIt affects my job because I work all day at school and have no time to rest.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Human rights lawyer Nguyen Van Miem wrote on Facebook, “There seems to be a campaign to harass the wives of prisoners of conscience.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Josef Benedict, Asia Pacific civil space advocacy expert for rights group CIVICUS also criticized Vietnam for harassing families of political prisoners.<\/span><\/p>\n

“The Vietnamese government must halt the shameful and vindictive campaign of harassment against the wives of political prisoners for their social media posts,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPrisoners\u2019 families should not be targeted simply because they seek justice for their loved ones .\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead they should be able to exercise their basic right to freedom of expression peacefully without fear of reprisal.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Amnesty International, Vietnam currently has more than 250 political prisoners.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hanoi always claims it has no political prisoners, only those convicted of crimes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tin t\u1eeb RFA Read More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vietnam police have been summoning the wives of political prisoners for questioning over the past week, leading one lawyer to suggest that the Ministry of Public Security has launched a new harassment campaign against relatives of prisoners of conscience. According to information obtained by Radio Free Asia, police summoned the wives of four prisoners this …<\/p>","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[82,239],"tags":[246,251],"class_list":["post-48252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society","category-vietnam","tag-english","tag-rfa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48252\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}