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Recently released after nearly 16 years in prison, Vietnamese human rights activist Tran Huynh Duy Thuc walks up the stairs of his family’s home, holding the hand of a toddler.
Once inside the apartment in Ho Chi Minh City, Thuc sits in front of his elderly father and the two men tenderly embrace. His father has waited years for this moment and was awake for much of the previous night in anticipation of Thuc’s arrival.
“I’m his father,” the elderly man proudly states in a video recorded last week.
Thuc, 57, is the co-founder of human rights group Vietnam Path. He was arrested in 2009 and sentenced the following year in connection with his online articles criticizing Vietnam’s one-party state.
His release – eight months ahead of the end of his sentence – came as a surprise.
The government made no announcement as to why Thuc was freed on Saturday, along with climate campaigner Hoang Thi Minh Hong, who had served 12 months of a three-year sentence for tax evasion.
But the two activists’ freedom came just one day before Vietnamese Communist Party General Secretary To Lam boarded a flight from Hanoi to New York, where he addressed the 79th session of the U.N. General Assembly.
‘Forced pardon’
Despite the happy reunion with his family, Thuc referred to his release as a “forced pardon” or forced return in a Facebook post after he got home, saying he had been “carried out of the prison despite the objections of [my] fellow political prisoners.”
“More than 20 staff members of Prison No. 6 rushed into my cell and read a notice stating that the State President had signed Amnesty Decision No. 940 ... granting me a pardon," he wrote. "As a result, I became free and was no longer allowed to stay in prison.
“I immediately protested, saying that I was not guilty and had no reason to accept the pardon, and that I would not go anywhere."
Thuc said he was taken to the airport and "forced to board a late flight [home] to Saigon [Ho Chi Minh City],” adding that he "did not want to gain my freedom through that [kind of] amnesty.”
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Since 2018, Thuc and his family had repeatedly applied for a review of his sentence, but their petitions were either rejected or ignored. He also staged multiple hunger strikes to protest unfair treatment in prison and refused several offers to leave Vietnam in exchange for his freedom, saying that he would rather die than abandon his campaign and his homeland.
In January 2023, the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, a bipartisan group of U.S. Congress members, called on Vietnam to release Thuc "immediately and without condition."
In his Facebook post, Thuc suggested his coercive release was “an important contribution to supporting the State President’s visit to the U.S.,” which he hoped would bring “a drastic transformation in [Vietnam’s] future.”
He also maintained his innocence, saying he had never intended to overthrow his country’s government.
“I only spoke out against tyrants and will continue to do so as long as they remain in power,” he wrote.
Defamation sentence
Despite the move to release Thuc, the Vietnamese government continues to clamp down on people who dare to criticize the government.
On Tuesday, the Lam Dong Provincial People’s Court sentenced Hoang Viet Khanh, 41, to eight years in prison and three years of probation on charges of “creating, storing, disseminating or propagandizing information, materials, items, and publications against the State.”
According to state media, Khanh regularly used the internet to “access websites and social media accounts of anti-government elements both inside and outside the country.”
Based on his indictment, Khanh used Facebook to post 126 articles and one video clip “criticizing the communist party and the state’s guidelines and policies in political and socio-economic areas, distorting history, defaming and insulting national leaders, or smearing senior Party leaders while spreading false information.”
The Lam Dong Provincial Police Department’s Security Investigation Agency arrested Khanh on Feb. 19, state media reports said, noting that his Facebook account had more than 45,000 followers prior to his detention.
State media described Khanh’s actions as “very serious and dangerous to society” and “in violation of national security,” adding that his case “should be handled strictly for the purposes of education, deterrence, and prevention.”
Khanh was charged under Article 117 of Vietnam’s Penal Code, which the government regularly uses to sentence those critical of the communist party and authorities. International human rights organizations have repeatedly condemned the article as too vague and called on Vietnam to repeal it.
Since the beginning of this year, at least nine individuals have been convicted under Article 117.
According to Human Rights Watch, Vietnam currently holds more than 160 political prisoners, which Hanoi denies.
Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.