REPORT ON THE VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN
TEMPORARY DETENTION CAMP 1, HANOI
Dear Sir/Madam,
I, attorney Nguyen Van Dai, had been detained nearly 10 months (from March 6, 2007 until January 4, 2008) at the detention center No. 1 in Hanoi before being transferred to Nam Ha prison in Ha Nam province. During the nearly 10 months of detention there, I was transferred to four (4) different detention cells, coming into contacts with hundreds of detainees. I, myself, have suffered as well as witnessed the trampling of human rights of these poor folks, the problem of corruption in the system of detention, which did not only violate the laws of Vietnam, but also violated the International Convention on political and civil rights. To help the international community to know and understand what is taking place in the detention camps of Vietnam, I write what I have endured and witnessed during my time in detention there:
1/ Detention facilities:
In accordance with the penal law of Vietnam, the basic standard for each detainee should be: a) at least 2 meter square sleeping space for a person, b) 2 liters of drinking water per person per day. But the room at the Hanoi temporary detention center for each detainee who has not yet been to the preliminary trial, is only 1.2 to 1.4 meter square, making the detention room always crowded and stuffy, especially during the summer. The temporary detainees are not allowed to use the mosquito net, although those areas are infested with mosquitoes. Through the use of polluted water, many mosquito bites when not treated promptly became infected and created skin lesions.
In the quarter for detainees who have not been through preliminary trials, clean drinking water are not provided. They are given very dirty water, drawn directly from the wells, to use for bathing, washing and sanitation. They have to use socks and washcloths to filter drinking water. In the prison chambers for those who had been tried in the first instance, boiled water is provided, but only in small amount, about 10 liters per day, to be divided among the more than 20 people, none on Saturdays and Sundays.
Food: The detention center provides detainees with only two meals per day, each meal consists a bowl of rice, and vegetables that are very dirty. Meat is given once a week, and less than 100 grams.
Contact: All information and contacts between detainees and their families are strictly prohibited until the investigation ends, or, in some cases, until after the hearing at first instance (especially in political proceedings). In the detention room there are no TV, radio or newspapers. The detainees are not privy to any news that going on in the outside.
2/ The life of the accused and their corrupt wardens:
A detention chamber is divided into four groups with different rights and privileges as follows:
- Upper Group: Special privilege group enjoys all the supplies sent in by families which are pooled together, they pick and choose the best foodstuffs and take the provisions according to their needs, the rest will be distributed back to the under privilege group below. They people are free to travel within the prison chamber and corridors. Those detainees who want to partake in the activities of the upper groups have to have their families pay the prison management about five million dong (approximately $300 USD in 2007) which is good for a term of about three months, after three months if the person has not been tried, the family must pay about one million more for each subsequent month.
- The In-between Group: This group is entitled to about 60% of the Upper groups. They are allowed to move about the cell chamber. The detainees who want to participate in these group activities must have their families pay the prison management between two to three million dong.
- Sanitation Team: These people have to do the sanitation chores in the cell, such as doing laundry, boiling water, making tea for the upper groups. They enjoy a little extra food every day which the upper group donate. Their families have to pay prison management from five hundred thousand to a million dong.
- The Dirt-Poor Group: These are people whose family economic conditions do not allow for bribes for their care. Every day they receive poor standards of detention, which consist of rice, some vegetables, and white salt. Once in a while, when their family brought in provision, they would receive about 1/3 of this family supplies. They have to sit bunching up, grasping their knees and are not free to travel within the cell. These people after a period of detention about three months or more, their health would decline, many would turn deeply depressive, became paralyzed and cannot walk.
3/ Method corruption of management
When a person comes into custody, the warden can assess his person's family circumstances through his records. Prison warden then would ask inmates who are in charge of assigning rooms for new detainees to see what groups he would like to participate with. After the new detainee made his decision to join certain group, the inmate in charge of room assignment would bring him to see the warden, the warden would then allow him to write letters to his family asking them to pay the warden fees. Through the detainee’s address and phone number, the warden will communicate directly with the detainee’s family to get his money. Usually an executive warden would supervise four-chamber cell numbered from 100 to 120 defendants. Each month the warden could earn from 45 to 60 millions dong, this is the estimate for the 2007 time period.
4/ Attitude and treatment of warden toward the detainees:
Temporary detainees are not considered guilty and should not be deprived of their civil rights. They are separated from society for the sake of the investigation. But those who manage them are always looking for ways to degrade their dignity. Most of the detainees are to call the warden ‘teacher’ and refer to themselves as ‘son’ or ‘daughter’, although many of the detainees are in the same age bracket or older than the warden. When the detainees are called out to speak, they are not allowed to sit in chair, they have to sit on the floor while the warden sits in his chair. Those detainees who violate prison rules and are without visiting relatives may get beating.
Every time a new person got detained, if the warden said, "No one asks this person questions" s/he will not be beaten. If the warden doesn’t say anything, then that night when he is taken into custody, the new person would be taught "the law" by the old inmates, the inmate in charge of the new chamber will tell him about "three No’s: no see, no hear, no tell," when someone ask about the violations taking place in detention. Then depending on the new detainee’ attitude, he will either be kicked in the chest or slap in both ears. Approximately 90% of those taken into custody for the first time got beaten thus.
Form of discipline for those who violate the rules of detention camps:
Those who violate the rules of detention camps would be held in a cramped closet, shackled for 7 days, 24/24 hours. They eat and carry out their bodily functions in place, can’t brush their teeth or wash their face daily, no bathing and no changing clothes.
5/ Inspection and monitoring:
Each year, agencies such as the Procuracy, the Police Inspector of the Security sectors regularly organize delegations to visit detention centers for inspection and monitoring arrests and detention conditions. But these inspection and monitoring visits are only perfunctory. All inspection and monitoring trips are announced in advance so the prison warden and those in charge would have time to prepare and shape up beforehand. Management and prison warden would ask the detainees to clean and ship-shape cell rooms, hiding all the banned items. The detainees would be selected, prepped and threatened before they meet the inspection team. So all the inspections and monitors would pass muster, getting good report and no offense.
6/ The supply and use of items prohibited in the detention center:
Under prison rules, the smoking of tobacco and water pipes, consumption of alcohol, beer, tea and the use of cash in the detention area are all prohibited. In fact, all inmates wishing to smoke tobacco or water pipe, drinking alcohol, beer, or even using drugs are also being satisfied. There are two sources of supply providing these stimulants to the detainees:
- The first source of supply is provided by the prison administration itself, the warden asks the detainee’s family to pay and he would buy cigarettes and other stimulants according to the needs of the detainee.
- The second source: there are police officers not involved in prison administration, who would facilitate cash transfer for the detainees. When the detainees see their family, the family is requested to contact the owner of the cafe in front of the detention center and ask them to transfer money to their loved ones. Café owner would take his $50,000 VND fee, then s/he (café owner) would hire the police from the detention center to bring money to the detainees, the detainees would receive only 60% of the amount that the family submitted, the police officers would get his 40% cut.The detainees use the money to buy tobacco at 20 times the price of the outside market going rate (to buy a tobacco package priced $10,000 dong outside, the detainee in detention has to pay $200,000 VND).
Also some of the detainees who wish to meet directly with their relatives must request and pay bribes of at least 2 millions dong to the camp supervisor (normally the detainees only meet his family by phone). Some detainees will give money to their supervising officers so they can see their family freely, then their relatives would give them small packages of drug, they would swallow them and thus transport the drug inside the detention camp. The user would consume part of the banned substance, and part they would sell to others at 20 times the going rate.
7/ The detainees’ effort to overcome difficulties:
The lives of the detainees in the Hanoi detention camp # 1 are brutally harsh. Yet they’d find ways to overcome these difficulties. The detention center do not allow the money to be deposited, so all the family provisions are cooked, prisons banned the use of fire and cooking in chamber confinement, but the detainees have to buy empty milk cans for $200 thousand dong, or beer cans for $100 thousand, and then use nylon bags as fuel to heat the food for the day, plus they also use nylon bags and beer cans to boil their drinking water. Periodically the police of the prison would make their rounds and confiscate all such items. The detainees have to take time and money to acquire these items again.
8/ Illness, diseases and medical care in prison:
The detainees often contracted three main diseases:
- First, skin lesions, caused by dirty water and damp, humid conditions in cramped quarters;
- Second, diarrhea, caused by eating spoiled food since there are no means to heat the food in detention.
- Third, detainees’ physical being become deteriorated which would bring about paralysis, caused by lack of adequate nourishment.
Every day there are health workers to visit people in detention center, but the medical staff just listen and provide medecines, and medicines produced by Vietnam are of low quality, many people have contracted more severe diseases and have to be taken to emergency hospital for treatment, and prolonged and inadequate treatment would affect the health of detainees. Many of the detainees whose economic conditions allow them to bribes prison management so they can receive proper treatment and medicine from family or taken to hospital when their conditions are still treatable and have not become acute.
9/ Corruption in the transfer of prisoners to the prison:
After the first instance or appellate hearings taking effect, ranging from 40 to 60 days, the detention center and prison management agency, under the Ministry of Public Security, will move those who have been sentenced into the prison to carry out the rest of their sentences. Detention in the Hanoi Detention Center #1 would hold some prisoners there who are sentenced to 3 years detention or less to do the kitchen work, farming, tend to livestock, and to carry out services in the detention center. Those prisoners who want to be kept back in detention center, their families have to pay bribes to prison administrators or staff an amount that ranges from 10 to 15 million depending on the location of their work. Those prisoners to be moved to prisons closer to home and doing light works, their families need to pay bribes of about 20 to 40 millions dong depending on the camp and the work they perform. Bribery is possible through the staff at the detention center or through relations with the prison management agency. The prisoners who have no bribes will be transferred to prisons far from their families and carry out the hard labor.
10/ Conclusion:
In Vietnam, the one-party political regime today is no longer consistent with economic development and societal progress. The mismatch of the political institution has created so many injustices in society, with the fundamental rights of the people continually deprived, those who are arrested, their dignity are being trampled. Corruption happens at all levels of society, outside as well as in prison.
What I and other people of Vietnam earnestly wish and call out to the international community is the need for them to act strongly and effectively to persuade and to pressure Vietnam’s communist government, forcing them to respect the importance of human rights provisions stipulated in the Constitution of Vietnam as well as in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Political changes in Vietnam will promote human rights and cause them to be honored. This not only brings joy and happiness to generations of Vietnam today and the Vietnam generation of tomorrow, but will facilitate Vietnam’s relation with the world’s civil societies.
Thank you for your time and patience in reading and understanding more of what has happened in the Hanoi Detention Center # 1.
If you have any further question please do not hesitate to contact me Nguyen Van Dai, email: godlovedai@gmail.com.
