TN0006 — Xuân Lộc Prison (Z30A)

It was around the end of two thousand and sixteen, close to the start of two thousand and seventeen, that I was arrested in Bình Định.

When I was arrested there was no paperwork. About six people arrested me at my home and put me in a vehicle. Then they drove me to a place, a room, and I did not know exactly where it was. I went through an interrogation and they questioned me about the leaflets I had handed out. So I had no documents of any kind when I was arrested, and I was not informed of the right to a lawyer or anything else.

Obviously, once they had arrested me and put me in a separate room, they had to search my person. As for searching my house, I did not know about that at the time. They did not take me home to search it, so I do not know.

About a year or so. I do not remember exactly, but it was probably around twelve months.

Usually there were two people at an interrogation session. All of them were security police. They would take turns questioning me. The first one might threaten you, but then the next one would come in and calm you down. That is how they work.

Of course that is self-evident — there was no person and no organisation monitoring that interrogation.

Only on the very first occasion, when they arrested me, did they use a phone to record it. Otherwise I hardly ever saw a camera or any recording device filming me, so I do not know for certain. In my view there was none.

They used a phone pointed at my face, but I could hardly walk over and check whether they were recording me or not.

I am not clear which force they belonged to, but they were in plain clothes. The police did the questioning, while the one filming and the ones who seized me were all in plain clothes. I do not know their names.

As for the pre-trial detention, I genuinely do not know. Because at that point I was taken away and shut in a separate room, and I was not clear what the place was either. When they arrested me they covered my face, so I could not tell. It was only when I was moved to a larger detention centre that I learned I was being held in Bình Định.

After the trial they moved me to a prison in the south, which I only later learned was Xuân Lộc.

The conditions of detention there were very bad. That room was about three metres long, about two metres across, and held three to four people on average. I was not allowed outside. There were shackles in the cell to chain a prisoner's legs if he broke the rules. No light, no window. Water was limited: I was issued about two litres a day for drinking. And the water for washing and daily use was very little. Altogether the drinking water and washing water in a day came to less than ten litres.

For the period of pre-trial detention, let me divide it into two parts. In the time before the investigation was closed, you could receive things sent in by your family but you were not allowed visits — no face-to-face contact. Only after the investigation stage ended did visits from family begin.

On this I had nothing at all during pre-trial detention. And when I went up to the larger facility, the prison where I served the sentence, the only newspaper I was issued was Báo Nhân Dân, and sometimes they handed it out and sometimes they did not. Now and then they said it had gone astray. As for books, we were very restricted, because the books in the prison were mostly old and there were very few of them. Each of us was limited to borrowing about five volumes. Beyond that, requesting a book was very difficult.

During the pre-trial detention and investigation stage there was no channel to any news whatsoever, not even newspapers or writing paper. I had no right to study at all. And when I went up to the larger facility, all I could get was VTV1, VTV3 and Báo Nhân Dân. That was the sum of the information I could gather, all I could know of the outside world while I was inside.

It did improve. Because once you go up to the larger facility you are no longer held in isolation in a small room twenty-four hours a day. Second, there is a little more room for prisoners to help one another. But for my part, once I was out and read the literature, I came to understand that the prison I had been through was a harsh one too.

The first thing is medical care. When we were ill — it might be toothache, or something more serious — we made requests, but they did not take us out for treatment. And the medical facilities inside the prison were very poor; they were not capable of treating what we had.

The second thing is the water supply. They pumped water up from a well, and in the rainy season the water was very dirty — it could bring up mud as well, and it gave off a foul smell. Because of that, skin disease was something we constantly had to deal with.

As for food, if you relied only on the food the prison handed out, I think it would be hard to survive and stay healthy, so you needed supplies and money from your family. But that was limited too, because the prison only allowed us to spend a fixed sum, and prices inside the prison were not like prices outside. The food they sold us — they would give us whatever, and whether it was good, spoiled or unusable we would complain and ask them to sort it out. But the most they would do about it was tell us that this item could no longer be sold to us because it had run out. They would simply cut that item off. So we were sometimes forced to pay high prices for food of unreliable quality. I know it was of unreliable quality because using ordinary senses alone — eyes, nose — we could see that it had already gone off.

They took the complaint in, but they did not act on it.

Mostly they only wanted it said out loud, with nothing in writing. If we asked to put it in writing to go up to the prison governor it was very difficult, because they would put us off; they would keep putting us off until the day we pushed hard, protested, did this and that, and then they would bring us out to write some sort of record. And that record would be sent off, but there was never any answer back from the prison.

Sometimes there was not even a guard there for us to raise it with. If you raise something many times they stop wanting to see you, and they avoid you.

As for the prison's visiting rules, honestly I do not remember them clearly. Because each month I was allowed one family visit, and on the notice board they had written that a visit lasted under one hour. Since they had written 'under one hour', a visit might be thirty minutes, or if they were in a better mood they would allow forty-five. Or if during our conversation we reported certain things and asked the family to pass them on, they could cut it off altogether and stop the visits. That is what I saw of the prison's rules.

Normally family could send us parcels twice a month, and the parcel had to be inspected by the police. The weight limit in my time was about five to seven kilos, but sometimes they could cut it, or not hand the package over to the prisoner. Sometimes a package went astray, and for what reason I do not know. But sometimes what the family sent did not reach the prisoner's hands.

This is genuinely hard for me to speak to. Because political prisoners were held in a separate area, kept apart from criminal prisoners, so there is no way I could know what the difference was between criminal prisoners and prisoners held in the national security section. We were confined to a separate area, cut off, so it was not possible to know about that.

In pre-trial detention they held me in a death-row block — the block was for those under sentence of death. That is the difference between me and other people. In that death-row block there were also criminal prisoners convicted of very serious offences, and I was held in the death-row area. Then when I went up to the larger facility I was held in a place for national security cases, so again I cannot be clear about the difference between political and criminal prisoners.

Yes, there was. First, the roll call — they call it a roll call, but in fact they come in and search your cell, possibly once or twice a day, and the timing of the search is arbitrary; it could be at night, it could be around two in the morning. While I was asleep they would come in and turn everything over. But it was specifically only political prisoners, or prisoners under sentence of death or life imprisonment, whose cells were searched that constantly.

I do not clearly understand their purpose, but it brought me a lot of trouble. First, they held the roll call at times when I think a person needs to rest, like two in the morning, three in the morning, or sometimes eleven. Second, if the people sharing with me were subjected to the same roll calls, had their lives disrupted the same way, they would turn round and blame me — that it was because of me that the others were put through roll calls as well. That is the kind of trouble it caused.

Another thing is that when they came in for the roll call they would specifically keep their shoes on, and tread all the filth from their shoes over the blankets, over the sleeping mats, over everything, over the clothes. Perhaps it was carelessness, or perhaps it is just how they live and how they treat people. But to me it was an affront. I felt it was not right. And under the law, I think what they did to me went too far.

Yes, of course there was.

When I was ill and it was an emergency, all you can do is shout. The person who decides whether you get emergency treatment or not, from what I heard afterwards, is a police officer in charge of medical matters. But normally in an emergency they would come in — though depending on how serious you were, they would take you out or not. As for how the treatment was carried out and whether it worked, that was limited, very limited.

First, I am not qualified to know whether those medicines worked or not. But for my part, the most important thing is that they have to improve the environment we live in. Because with that living environment, taking medicine does not make it any better.

Specifically, the water used for washing and for drinking and cooking. Second, the food — food that was mouldy, spoiled, filthy, foul-smelling. Third, the matter of letting us out to exercise and get some sun. Those are the basics — and above all, newspapers and books, so that we have the right to study. Because health is not only physical, it is mental as well.

In that place, from what I saw inside the prison, we could not carry out religious observances.

First, on books and printed matter, they restricted them, they banned them. The Bible, for example — we could not read it. Books of Buddhist scripture, for example — we did not have those either. As for other religions I am not clear, such as how it was for Islam. But in here the water was limited, so we could not wash and then perform a religious rite. They did not forbid it, but the conditions they set made it impossible for us to do it.

Among the Buddhists I shared with, I know there were people whose faith required them to eat vegetarian, strictly vegan. But in those conditions of detention they could not keep to a strictly vegan diet. So in that sense I think they did not forbid it either, but they did not make it possible for a prisoner to practise his religious belief fully.

Normally at around six o'clock they would open a door — one door. Then they would push rice in for us to eat, but that rice was from the evening before, cold rice, and only plain rice. You could have breakfast or not; that was your business. Then waiting until midday, at about eleven o'clock, another round of rice would come, and that one came with soup — the soup might be sweet-potato leaves or water spinach boiled in water. And after that meal, at twelve o'clock, they shut the door. At my prison they would normally shut the door for good at around five in the afternoon.

At my prison there was no labour; prisoners were not forced to work, so day after day I was simply shut in a special block, rather than being sent out to work as at other prisons. And inside there, that is how the time passed. Every day the same.

I was held in isolation for more than a year. I do not remember exactly, but it was about that.

The reason was that I protested to the prison about the harsh conditions of detention. I asked them to release us from the segregated block so that we could come under the prison's own rules — that is, be allowed to study, to exercise. I asked the prison to improve the water supply and to improve medical care. For instance, if the prison was not able to treat our illnesses then it should let us go out under our rights and obligations, under their own law. We were willing to pay for it ourselves, and they still would not allow it. There were a great many issues. Then on books and newspapers, they restricted them. So when I protested, they would not accept it and they moved me to a separate place of confinement.

In the separate confinement they hold you in a smaller place, set apart. In that place there are no other people, only yourself — or those confined together with you, the ones who protested as you did, get held separately in that place.

They can restrict me in buying goods and food. If I broke the rules, then along with separate confinement, some other people would have their legs shackled.

It was very different. During that confinement the cell was very small, much smaller. I was restricted on books — in fact there were none at all. Restricted to the point of nothing at all. Usually after about one month, two months, if you pressed hard they would only give you a promise. They would promise it for the end of next month, and so on, next month, next month, we will let you out to study. That is what they said, but never. Right up to the point when my pre-trial detention ended I still had not been allowed to read a book or to use pen and paper.

The second issue is the water. They supplied only ten litres of water for both washing and drinking, and that gave me a skin disease. In an environment as harsh and as hot as that, and yet the cell had no window, so it was stifling. The ceiling of the cell was far too old, so every time the rain came it leaked.

Second, on supplies in that detention block: they did not allow prisoners to help one another. Even though the prison rules state that a prisoner has the right to help other prisoners with their rehabilitation while in detention. But they would not allow it. If they caught us helping each other — for example giving each other food — they could punish us in a number of ways, such as not giving us rice but cooking the rice with water so it thinned out like gruel, and it was very dirty, not proper rice, and very watery. When we were hungry, the usual punishment was to eat like that for about thirty days, up to about two months, three months, depending on what the police decided.

Another thing is that they could cut off the water and not pump any for us to use, and then we would have no water for washing or daily needs, not even to flush the toilet. Or sometimes, in certain cases, they might beat you as well.

They did beat me. In the pre-trial period it was only at interrogations, where they slapped me a few times, in the early sessions; later, no. Then at the point when I went up to the larger prison, on the day I protested — that demonstration — they brought the riot squad down and beat me.

It tore the flesh open on my foot. At that point the bone was showing at the shin. That was the riot squad kicking me. They used their boots to kick, kicked it open, the flesh swelling out.

I was held in pre-trial detention, then they took me straight up to Xuân Lộc, without transfers, so I do not know what other prisons are like.

They keep us completely apart, segregated. That is, we could not talk to one another, could not see one another, so I cannot know whether there was any difference between me and other people.

The regime of detention in Vietnam, I think, does not safeguard human rights. It restricts a great many things and the conditions of detention are very bad. There is no way a person can live, or survive, without help from family and from other prisoners. So I do not think those conditions can be said to safeguard anything. Because within human rights we have the right to study, the right to exercise, the right to follow our own beliefs. But in that place I could not.

No. I have not seen any organisation or individual monitoring the detention regime.

On improving the detention regime in Vietnam, speaking personally I think we should speak up about what is still lacking in the conditions of detention in Vietnam. On my own I cannot do anything at all. I hope that the people who hear this programme, or other individuals and organisations — and especially the communists — will think about it. At the very least they should regard people in detention as human beings too, and treat them exactly as the law provides. If they treated us according to the very law they made, that alone would ease a great deal.

Speaking personally, that is not possible; it is unfeasible.

Under a one-party system like this, if a board were set up to monitor the detention regime, its members would be party members too. How can there be any independence when they all belong to the same party?

After my sentence ended, when I went to see other people, afterwards the police would come and question the people I had met. I would just be chatting with someone, and they would still come, they would work on that person, and that person would then not dare to have contact with me. From that I withdrew into myself, and it also became hard to form new relationships.

As for money, as for finances, I received no help from them.

They often come round asking me to go for coffee with them, to go out with them. But I have honestly told them straight that I do not want to see them, because going through detention has left my state of mind unsteady. When I see them in that uniform I am very frightened. But they still keep coming, dropping in at my house now and then, asking me where I have been, asking about my family. I do not think that is help; it makes me feel more pressured.

That is right — it really is control, it cannot be called help.

As I said before, if I go to a friend, say I spend time with them, talk with them, then immediately afterwards the police will come and see that person, and so those people will gradually keep away from me. At first they may talk normally, but after that they will edge away, they do not want it. In Vietnam you have to understand that when the police come round and start working on someone, it frightens them, and from then on they keep away. That is why I am cut off.

It has made it hard for me to make friends.

It has left me feeling that Vietnam is like a bigger prison. Even now that my time in prison is over, I am out, I am still administered, still under surveillance. On public holidays they still telephone me directly — the thirtieth of April every year, and on the big holidays they still telephone me directly to confirm where I am. That leaves me deeply frustrated.

It still happens today. On the big holidays they still call me.

I feel that my sentence has not ended; it is still running.

The memory that stays with me most is that during my time in detention at Xuân Lộc a prisoner died of illness. That made me very sad, and made me realise that the conditions of detention in this place were far too bad.

As for getting through that time in detention, I think it was simply that I wanted to live. I wanted to live.

You just want to be alive; in truth, to say that I got through it is not a matter of willpower. I had no other choice, I simply had to get through it. In an environment where you have no choice, I tried to survive each day inside the prison. And now, at present, I am still only trying to survive; I am not at ease yet.

I hope they will treat prisoners more decently, more humanely. If they cannot help, or do not have the authority to improve the conditions of detention, then at the very least they should not make it harsher. That is what I hope for.

Because in the course of detention you deal with a great many people who have charge of you, not just one. Among them there are those who act simply because it is their duty, and they will not make the environment I am held in any harder than it is. But sometimes there are certain individuals who will make the whole environment of my detention miserable. For instance they might not let the water be pumped for me, even though I had done nothing wrong. Or they restrict books, they cut short my family visit time, or they supply food that is not enough, that stinks, that cannot be eaten. Those things depend on the individual, not on all of them in general. Some will just do their duty, but some will make life inside miserable for me — it depends on their whim.

If we are talking about fellow prisoners, the one who left the strongest impression on me is Mr M C.

He has been in prison up to now for perhaps thirty years, at Xuân Lộc.

What impressed me most about him is his strength of will. He refuses to admit guilt; the police have urged him many times, but he still holds to his own ideals — that what he did was not wrong. He accepts staying in prison.

Translator's note: the account is the answer side of a recorded interview, so several passages begin mid-thought (“Yes, there was…”) where a question has been left out. Hedges such as “I do not remember exactly” and “I do not know” are kept as spoken; nothing has been made more certain than the original. Place names, Báo Nhân Dân, VTV1/VTV3 and the initials M C are left as in the Vietnamese.