I would like to explain to all of you, and I thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to make the presentation to you today. My name is Minh Tam Truong. I'm a member of the movement for the Vietnam Path, which is a civic organization fighting for human rights in Vietnam. This movement was created by Mr. Tran Huynh Duy Thuc and a number of other progressive intellectuals in Vietnam.
In my presentation today I would like to talk about the conditions in prisons in Vietnam. Because of the limited time, I will talk only about the conditions concerning political prisoners in Vietnam. This information and the facts that I'm going to present to you today are based on the experience of my one-year stay in prison after being accused of activities against the government. I have continued to collect those activities for a year since my release.
Ladies and gentlemen, the prison conditions in Vietnam, especially for political prisoners, are really very acute and very serious. Even though the law says there is no distinction between regular prisoners and political prisoners, in reality there is a lot of difference. Political prisoners are detained in an isolation cell nicknamed the tiger cage. This is a very small cell 4.7 square metres in size. There is no ventilation, no lighting. There is no clean water, no drinking water. Prisoners are not allowed to take a bath. They can be given only 1.2 to 10 litres of water every day. That's why they are living in very unhygienic conditions. It is very hot in summer and very cold in winter. It is called the tiger cage because in the summer it is very hot so all the prisoners are completely naked.
They always put the political prisoners and the criminal prisoners in one cell so that the criminal prisoners can exercise control over the political prisoners. The criminal prisoners always try to attack the political prisoners. That is considered a kind of indirect torture on their part.
The meal ration is very poor. Even though in theory they are allowed to have 1.2 kilograms of rice every day and 1.5 kilograms of meat or fish every month, the quality is very poor. For instance rice is usually either half cooked or burnt or mixed with grains of stone. The vegetables are all mixed up with garbage, roots, and soil. The fish are served cooked whole, no skinning, no removing the intestines. Meat consists mostly of either fat or bone and it is often rotten.
In these very poor and very unhygienic conditions most of the prisoners have contracted very serious illnesses like scabies, digestive illness, illness of the joints and bones, and deterioration of eyesight.
Those are the physical living conditions but the psychological conditions are equally tragic. They are only allowed to read the daily newspaper, People's Army Newspaper, which is an official organ of the Vietnamese Communist Party. They are forced to watch the TV program, which is meaningless or stupid, prepared by the government. They are not allowed to read or to receive any other newspapers or books sent by family.
In this respect I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the prisoners who are of Christian religions are discriminated against even more. They cannot practise their religious ceremonies inside the prison and they are not allowed to read Bibles or any religious material. That is the reason there have recently been a lot of hunger strikes in the prison in Vietnam. That is the means of last resort, because they have no other means of drawing the attention of the world to their protest, so they offer their own body and their own well-being as a means of protest.
The Communist government makes their lives and the lives of their families even more difficult by transferring them to detention camps far away from their family home. They also continue to allow the criminal prisoners to beat up the political prisoners.
I would like to mention the names of a few political prisoners who have been undergoing hunger strikes for a long time: Mr. Dang Xuan Dieu, Mr. Dinh Nguyen Kha, Mr. Tran Vu Anh Binh, Mr. Nguyen Hoang Quoc Hung, Ms. Bui Thi Minh Hang, Ms. Ta Phong Tan, Ms. Can Thi Theu, Ms. Nguyen Dang Minh Man, and Mr. Le Thanh Tung.
In particular, in this presentation to you, I would like to mention the names of three people.
A particular case of a person who suffers a lot of torture and maltreatment is that of Mr. Dang Xuan Dieu. When I was in prison, Mr. Dieu was in the cell next to me, so what I'm telling you now is precise and accurate information. He's a young man of the Catholic religion. He and Mr. Ho Duc Hoa are the two who have been given the longest sentence, which is 13 years.
He has been in prison for nearly four years. During these four years, the time in which he went on hunger strikes or refused to take food has amounted to more than 500 days. For six consecutive months, he was beaten by the criminal prisoners with the approval of the prison camp. He has many diseases involving the joints and the digestive system. He weighs just more than 40 kilograms, and his back is always bent over. He continues his hunger strike and his refusal to take meals as a protest against the government because, in his view, he considers that he has been treated with very grave injustice on the part of the government.
When I got out of prison I also let the outside community know about that and because of that Mr. Dieu has been transferred from the prison in Thanh Hoa to the camp in Xuan Loc. Despite the fact that the treatment has lightened up a bit, the severity hasn't changed very much.
I would appeal to you for humanitarian reasons to demand that Mr. Dieu be treated for his illness. He must have access to a lawyer to defend his case.
The next two cases are Mr. Tran Huynh Duy Thuc and Ms. Ta Phong Tan. I would like to ask for your help particularly for Ms. Ta Phong Tan because she's a woman and she is in a desperate situation and she has been in prison for a long time. We must pressure the communist government to treat people humanely no matter who that person is.
In the case of Mr. Tran Huynh Duy Thuc, we believe that he's completely innocent. He's a patriot and he's an intellectual and he needs to have his freedom so that he can contribute to the improvement of the country.
I am Truong Minh Tam. I'm a member of the organizations to protect human rights and I would like to work with you to improve and to protect human rights in Vietnam.
I thank you for your attention and I am prepared to answer your questions.