Four Prisoners of Conscience in Prison Camp No. 6 End 40-day Hunger Strike

Prisoner of conscience Truong Minh Duc

Defend the Defenders, July 29, 2019

For prisoners of conscience named Nguyen Van Tuc, Tran Phi Dung, Truong Minh Duc and Dao Quang Thuc have ended their 40-day hunger strike after authorities of Prison camp No. 6 met their demand for improving imprisonment’s conditions.

According to Mrs. Bui Thi Re, the wife of Mr. Tuc, the group of fout started eating on July 21 after the prison’s authorities installed electrical fans in their cells.

Prisoner of conscience Dao Quang Thuc

In their visit to the prison on July 29, she and her son were permitted to talk with Mr. Tuc around 45 minutes. She said his health is recovering but still very weak.

Mr. Tuc told her that the prison’s authorities have yet allowed them to make phone calls to their families, and plan to resume hunger strike if they deny their right next month.

The four started to carry out their hunger strike on June 10 after the prison’s authorities removed all electrical fans in their cells amid extremely hot summer in the country’s central region, in which the temperature hits over 42 Celsius degrees in most time of a day.

Their fasting has attracted attention of other activists outside and thousands of them and dozens of independent civil society organizations have called on the communist government to end inhumane treatment against prisoners of conscience in all prisons in the country.

Many other prisoners of conscience in other prisons, incling Prison camp No. 5 in Thanh Hoa province and Ba Sao Prison camp in Ha Nam also stopped eating for many days to support them.

All the four were sentenced to between 12 years and 14 years in prison on charge of subversion in trumped-up cases.

They are listed as prisoners of conscience by Amnesty International which said Vietnam is holding 128 prisoners of conscience.

According to Defend the Defenders’ statistics, Vietnam is holding at least 232 prisoners of conscience as of July 29.