Ms. Huỳnh Thục Vy is a well-known woman human rights defender. As the daughter of former prisoner of conscience Huỳnh Ngọc Tuấn, she suffered discrimination in her childhood. Her ex-husband Nguyễn Khánh Duy is also an active human rights defender. [1] Since 2008, Ms. Vy has emerged as an activist for the rule of law who frequently writes on political, environmental, and social issues, including the country’s political prisoners.
Activism
In 2008, Ms. Vy became a prolific blogger on human rights issues, especially women’s rights, democracy, pluralism, and human rights. She started to post her writings on the Dan Chim Viet website about political and social issues, called for youth concern for politics and society, and promoted a political system with democracy and pluralism.
Ms. Vy is the author of the book “Identifying the Truth, Freedom, and Human Rights” (“Nhận định Sự thật Tự do và Nhân quyền”). In 2012, she was awarded the Hellman/Hammett Prize by Human Rights Watch for her courage and consistency despite the severe political crackdown. [2]
In 2013, Ms. Vy co-founded Vietnamese Women for Human Rights (VWHR), a non-political, non-profit, and independent organization aiming to work on protecting women from human rights violations, supporting them materially and emotionally, to ensure their legal rights such as freedom of speech or freedom of assembly and of association, and providing human rights education for its members. Founders and members of VWHR have allegedly been harassed by security forces in Viet Nam and have faced judicial prosecution over the years.
Arrest and detention
On November 1, 2021, at approximately 16:00, the police arrested Ms. Vy as she was traveling to a relative’s home. The police allegedly did not have a warrant at the time of the arrest. She was reportedly first brought to a police station nearby, where her husband could speak to her for 10 minutes. She was then brought to Dak Lak provincial prison, where she has been detained since. Ms. Vy has reportedly been unable to receive visits from her family and suffers from depression, for which she takes medication that she has not been allowed to receive.
Ms. Vy was arrested after the People’s Court of Buon Ho Commune, Dak Lak Province, revoked the suspension of her prison sentence until her youngest child turned three years old for allegedly violating the terms of the suspension. However, her lawyer was reportedly not officially notified of the court decision, and her family was only officially notified on November 30, 2021, through a court document.
Ms. Vy is serving her 2 years 9 months imprisonment. Her mental and physical health is failing as she has bad sinuses and suffers from serious depression, which can be attributed to her sentence being carried out when her youngest child was under three months old. Besides, she has been physically assaulted by prison guards and other inmates. The torture allegations have emerged since her family visit last October.
In October 2022, Ms. Vy’s family visited her at Gia Trung Prison in Gia Lai Province on October 9. Her brother reported that during the last five minutes of the visit, when she was allowed to hug her children, she whispered to her six-year-old daughter that she had been “beaten and choked by the neck.” [3] Her brother also said that at the last visit on August 10, she slammed the phone on the floor after being told she could not hug her children, but she later said she was not disciplined for it. He said Ms. Vy might have been targeted by officials for helping other prisoners, sharing her food with them, giving their families’ phone numbers to him so he could update them about their imprisoned loved ones.
In November 2022, Ms. Vy’s brother stated that the family strongly believes that Gia Trung Prison officials “gave the green light” for other inmates to physically assault his sister in October 2022. [4] Both officials and Ms. Vy told him that the prison set up a “people’s court” of about 100 inmates to “denounce” her, but she refused to attend, saying it was against prison rules and the law. After filing a formal complaint, her brother was invited to meet with prison officials. They informed him that Ms. Vy had “denied making any such allegations” without producing any written proof.
International communications
In March 2019, The Committee to Protect Journalists released an infographic for International Women’s Day showing 32 of the reported 251 jailed women journalists worldwide, in which Ms. Vy was one of the two Vietnamese journalists. [5]
On February 18, 2022, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders and other UN experts sent a communication to the Government of Viet Nam concerning the sentencing of woman human rights defender Ms. Huỳnh Thục Vy. [6] The experts were particularly concerned regarding the revocation of the suspension of Ms. Huỳnh Thục Vy’s prison sentence until her youngest child turned three years old without clarification of the alleged actions on her behalf that violated the terms of the suspension.
References:
[1] https://the88project.org/profile/207/huynh-thuc-vy/ [2] https://www.hrw.org/news/2012/12/20/vietnamese-bloggers-recognized-commitment-rights [3] https://www.rfa.org/vietnamese/news/vietnamnews/prisoner-of-conscience-huynh-thuc-vy-beaten-while-le-dinh-luong-not-permitted-to-meet-relatives-10102022080902.html [4] https://cpj.org/2022/10/vietnamese-journalist-huynh-thuc-vy-beaten-choked-by-prison-guards/ [5] https://infogram.com/iwd-infographic-1hdw2j5vddod4l0?live [6] https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadPublicCommunicationFile?gId=27089
