Vietnam Imprisoned Pastor in Critical Situation, Placed in Solitary Cell since October Last Year

Pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh at trial in 2012

By Defend the Defenders, February 11, 2017

Protestant pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh, who has been placed in a solitary cell in the Xuan Loc Prison in Vietnam’s southern province of Dong Nai since October last year, is in a critical health condition, his wife Tran Thi Hong told Defend the Defenders on Saturday.

Mrs. Hong, a member of Vietnam Women for Human Rights, said she visited him last Friday. After more than three months of solitary confinement, she said that her husband’s skin had deteriorated.

Pastor Chinh, who has been imprisoned since 2011, is suffering from a number of diseases, including acute nasal sinusitis, arthritis, high blood pressure and inflammation of the stomach, but he received no medical treatment from the prison’s authorities.

The prison authorities have not permitted him to receive drugs from his wife for these diseases, she said.

The pastor who has fought for religious freedom for ethnic minorities in the Central Highlands, told his wife that he had been supplied with only poor-quality rice, not with any vegetables or meat for months.

In addition, the prison’s authorities send police officers to inspect his isolated cell regularly, and criminal inmates to curse him. They also handcuff him in the solitary cell as well as send surveillance teams during the night to scare him off.

Mrs. Hong said his life would be threatened if the prison authorities continued their inhuman treatment of her husband.

Pastor Chinh is a Gia Lai province-based Mennonite pastor who was arrested in April 2011. One year later, he was sentenced to 11 years in jail for “undermining the national unity policy” under Article 87 of the Penal Code. He was held in An Phuoc Prison, about 600 km (a 12-hour journey) from his family home, and transferred in Xuan Loc Prison in October last year. Vietnam’s authorities did not immediately inform his family about his transfer.

Pastor Chinh has constantly been subjected to torture and degrading treatment by the Ministry of Public Security as he has refused to confess any wrongdoing.

When he was held in An Phuoc Prison, he was supplied food that was mixed with tiny glass particles and copper wire. The drinking water provided to prisoners of conscience allegedly had a strange smell so it might have been intentionally contaminated with toxic chemical substances. In addition, prison authorities encouraged and used criminal prisoners to beat prisoners of conscience who bravely speak out to protest inhuman treatment in the prison.

Chinh, who was accused of giving interviews to foreign media and joining with other dissidents in criticizing the government, is among 82 prisoners of conscience whom Amnesty International urged Vietnam’s government to release immediately and unconditionally.

While he has been detained, his wife has been harassed by the police in Pleiku city. In April-May 2016, she was summoned to the local police station where police officers beat and interrogated her about her meeting with U.S. diplomats led by Ambassador at Large on International Religious Freedom David Saperstein in late March.

According to a report titled “Prisons Within Prisons: Torture and ill-treatment of prisoners of conscience in Viet Nam” released in 2016, Amnesty International said the conditions in Vietnam’s prisons are harsh, with inadequate food and health care that falls short of the minimum requirements set out in the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the “Nelson Mandela Rules”) and other international standards.

Many prisoners of conscience have been held in solitary confinement for prolonged periods as a punishment and have been subjected to ill-treatment, including beatings by prison guards and by other prisoners with prison guards failing to intervene, the London-based human rights organization said in the report.

Some prisoners of conscience are frequently moved from one detention facility to another, often without their families being informed of the transfers or their whereabouts, it noted.

Vietnam ratified the Convention against Torture in February 2015; however, the Communist government has taken insufficient steps to bring the country into compliance with its obligations under that treaty, Amnesty International concluded.

Few prisoners of conscience have been pardoned although Vietnam has given amnesty for thousands of prisoners every year.