Below
is an article of mine for the second commemoration of the
International Day to End Impunity in 2012.
Impunity
means crimes against freedom of expression that are unpunished,
ranging from intimidation, censorship, harassment, defamation, to
assault and battery, imprisonment, even murder. In committing these
crimes, the perpetrators aim at preventing citizens from exercising
freedom of expression, and they are confident that they can do so
without being held responsible to the law.
The
International Day to End Impunity of November 23, therefore, is meant
to advocate for the eradication of crimes against freedom of
expression.Its first anniversary was marked in 2011 in remembrance of
the 58 victims, including at least 34 journalists, killed in the 2009
Maguindanao massacre in the Philippines.
*
* *
The
morning of 24 September must have been an unforgettable for Binh Nhi,
a 29-year-old who had just secretly traveled thousands of kilometers by train from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City. Binh Nhi was caught by the
police and was heavily beaten in custody. The wrong he committed was
that he wanted to go to the People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City,
where the trial of a very famous blogger was taking place that
morning. Hundreds of policemen, both uniformed and plain clothed,
were ubiquitous in the area to stop people from approaching the
court, even though it was officially a ‘public’ trial.
Dieu
Cay is the pen name of the blogger on trial. While he was in court
that morning, his ex-wife and son were kept outside the court and
prevented from attending the hearing, despite their desperate and
angry objections. Police even ripped off the son’s “Free Dieu
Cay” t-shirt. A young policeman taunted them shouting, “[You
want] Freedom? Your freedom is my penis!”
After
a trial that lasted for only three hours, Dieu Cay was sentenced 12
years to prison, while Ta Phong Tan, a woman blogger, received 10
years, and Phan Thanh Hai, aka AnhbaSG, four years. Analysts said
AnhbaSG was given the lighter sentence for having admitted before the
court that he was wrong, he felt remorse and would cut off all
relationships with “reactionary elements.” This verdict for Anhba
SG was something his family and friends all knew ahead of the trial.
All
of the three bloggers were convicted under Article 88 of the Penal
Code of Vietnam, penalizing the vague crime of “conducting
anti-state propaganda”.
Blogger’s
charisma
“Dieu
Cay”, which means “peasant pipe”, is a very popular Vietnamese
nickname that any Vietnamese blogger can use. And it’s the nickname
of chosen by Nguyen Van Hai, an easy-going, amiable, warm-hearted and
charismatic person, according to his friends.
Born
on 23 September 1952 in the northern city of Hai Phong, Dieu Cay
spent his youth in the Vietnam People’s Army in the southwestern
border battlefield in the late 1970s. After the war, Dieu Cay chose
to start his own business—running a coffeehouse, selling cameras
and other photo equipment, and renting out apartments—instead of
joining the bureaucracy, which was the common path of many.
When
Yahoo! 360° came to Vietnam in 2005 after its official launch in the
US, it was the first time for the country’s 22 million internet
subscribers, mostly youths, to experience a new form of reading,
writing, and expressing their ideas and opinions. While politics
remained a sensitive area to most Vietnamese bloggers, the country
began to witness since 2007 a growing concern about political issues,
especially with the escalation of tensions on conflicting territorial
claims between Vietnam and China.
Dieu
Cay, in his 50s, proved to be internet-savvy, adapting very quickly
to the new media. In mid-2007, he developed his own Yahoo! 360°
blog, to which he posted writings and photos of the life of people in
contemporary Vietnam. For example, he told the story of how he got
into trouble when the local People’s Committee alleged that his
restaurant was using the foreign name, “Mitau”, which simply
meant “you and me” in a central Vietnam dialect. His writings,
with a sense of humour and bitter satire, reflected different aspects
of a crippling rule of law, winning him a high reputation as the
first-ever famous political blogger in Vietnam.
In
2007, Dieu Cay and a few friends established the Free Journalists
Club (FJC) without official permission. (While the Vietnam
Constitution recognizes freedom of association, it is not realized
because of many obstacles for groups to organize themselves.) He also
developed its blog, which, similar to his personal one, became a
potent weapon in the struggle for justice and freedom of Vietnamese
citizens. With a laptop and a camera, he travelled to many places in
Vietnam to write stories on disadvantaged communities, including
dispossessed farmers and sweatshop workers. Dieu Cay, for instance,
exposed the beginnings of corruption in the construction of Can Tho
bridge, which collapsed in September 2007 and is of the most serious
disasters in Vietnam’s construction history.
The
web of persecution
One
example of government persecution against Dieu Cay occurred around
November 2006. He was involved in a dispute with a neighbor, and an
official of the local cell of the Communist Party, who appropriated
part of one of Dieu Cay’s apartments. Dieu Cay posted photos of his
apartment to his blog and distributed copies of the case among
neighbors and friends. This attracted attention of the local people
who were all displeased with the communist cadre. He also reported
the case to local police, who, instead of returning the property to
him, fined Dieu Cay instead for “inciting social disorder”. He
objected and took a lawsuit to a local administrative court, which he
lost in June 2007. In the process however, he blogged photos, voice
recordings, and court proceedings, describing a spurious,
laughter-provoking “rule of law” and, earning him even bigger
attention from the public.
On
December 2007, bloggers protested for the first time in Hanoi and Ho
Chi Minh City, opposing China’s plan to set up a “Sansha City”
to administer the disputed Spratly and Paracel islands in South China
Sea. Dieu Cay, who was already prominent by then, managed to attract
the participation of dozens of students.He was brutally detained by
the police later on the way home.
Although
he was released at the end of the day, Dieu Cay would from that time
be placed under tight police surveillance. He was often harassed, his
business sabotaged by strangers in different ways. More seriously,
Dieu Cay was regularly summoned to the police station for
interrogation. His friends say many interrogations lasted from 8am to
10pm, with a lot of queries about his activities and FJC’s. Because
of this, Dieu Cay was almost confined to his home. When the pressure
got worse, Dieu Cay decided to leave.
Subsequently
there was a campaign of the police chasing after Dieu Cay. On April
19, 2008, he was “urgently arrested”, as police put it, in an
Internet café in the southern city of Da Lat. No one witnessed the
arrest, so there is no information about the charges contained in the
warrant. International group Reporters Without Borders said it was no
coincidence that Dieu Cay’s arrest came just a few days before the
Ho Chi Minh City leg of the Olympic torch relay for which the
government insisted on ‘absolute security’ and sanctions against
any ‘troublemakers.’
Dieu
Cay was handcuffed and secretly taken back to Ho Chi Minh City,
placed in custody without access to any lawyer or legal support. The
lawyer that Dieu Cay’s family hired later, Le Cong Dinh, complained
that he was not permitted to meet Dieu Cay during police
investigation and not even notified of the trial date.
The
lawyer said the house search was only conducted a few days after his
arrest. All of Dieu Cay’s friends and family thought the search was
just aimed at finding evidence of his “anti-state activities”.
Not finding anything, authorities then accused him of tax fraud.
Even then, they failed to follow due process.
Since
the police only began to seize papers as few days after the arrest,
it was improbable that charges by the People’s Procuracy for tax
fraud to be “based on some documents”, as it had said before the
house search. Prior to the arrest, Dieu Cay was not served any notice
from the local tax department related to his alleged tax evasion. All
of the questions he was asked during the hours of investigations
focused on his blogging activities, especially on the FJC.
Le
Cong Dinh also found out that Dieu Cay, in fact, did not commit tax
evasion. Rather, it was the police who requested the local tax
department not to receive any overdue tax from both the Dieu Cay and
his tenant without police permission. The request was made as early
25 February 2008. In other words, the tax fraud case was trap set up
for Dieu Cay months before his arrest.
Dinh
himself would be arrested just one year after and charged with
attempting to overthrow the state.
Another
lawyer, Le Tran Luat, who offered to free legal assistance to Dieu
Cay, experienced police harassment and was also summoned for
interrogation. The police questioned Le Tran Luat on his relationship
with Dieu Cay, the motive behind the offer to defend free-of-charge,
and his knowledge about the “outlawed FCJ.”
On
10 September 2008, Dieu Cay was sentenced 30 months in prison by the
Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court. Ironically, on 18 October 2010,
just one day before Dieu Cay completed his prison term, blogger
AnhbaSG, also an FJC member, was arrested.
Dieu
Cay would remain in detention under the new charge of “spreading
propaganda against the state.” His family has also been subject to
state harassment.
A
warning to bloggers
In
the months before the September 2012 trial of Dieu Cay, an online
petition drew thousands of people to sign an open letter to President
Truong Tan Sang, demanding for Dieu Cay’s freedom. Many bloggers
produced black T-shirts with the slogan “Free Dieu Cay, freedom for
the patriot”. The atmosphere was so tense that the police-dominated
People’s Procuracy had tried to keep the trial date secret.
The
24 September trial won unprecedented attention in Vietnam’s
blogosphere and social networks (mostly Facebook). Dozens of bloggers
from other places traveled to Ho Chi Minh City and went to the
People’s Court, trying to attend the supposedly public trial
despite the police blockade. The police jammed cell phone signals;
many people were intimidated, harassed, and beaten, their mobile
phones and cameras seized. The state-owned media launched a campaign
attacking Dieu Cay ad hominem, as well as other “anti-state”
bloggers in general.
Online
commentators said that by giving Dieu Cay such a harsh sentence, the
authorities wanted to send a message that they will be very tough on
those critical of the state.
The
heavy punishment, however, did not create the fear that the
authorities expected among the citizens. Instead, anger spread
virally over the Vietnamese-language internet. Even some members of
blogging communities usually supportive of the state had to admit
that the trial was unfair to bloggers who just voiced their opinion
in a peaceful way, using only a web-connected laptop.
Many
people contrasted Dieu Cay’s penalties with a case of police abuse
of power, in which a police causing the death of one citizen not
wearing a motorbike helmet was sentenced to only four years in
prison. Many lamented that in Vietnam, “justice is just a
travesty,” “blogging is now a dangerous job,” “if you hate
someone, you’d better kill him rather than write bad things about
him, because raising opinions here is more severely punished than
murder.”
