Nguyễn Trí Dũng - Translated by Mike Nguyen (Danlambao) - Today August 8, 2014, we (our family) received a notice from the office of” Civil Court Execution”, a division of the Court District # 3 saying that they are requesting our family to pay a court fee worth of $400,000VN (we believe it is the fine) in exchange for possible pardon of our father, Mr. Nguyễn Văn Hải (pen name blogger Điếu Cày), who was illegally sentenced and convicted in the trial of Vietnam Free Press Club, but later the charge was altered as tax evasion. However the charge which has always been denied by the defendant.
This is the latest action from the Vietnam communist government pressing on those defendants in a quick and secret trial (family and relatives not allowed to attend), which up until now the main defendant, Mr. Nguyễn Văn Hải still has not received the final verdict from the highest court, despite of multiple appeals and complaints of unfair trial. The incident is occurring in the event of the visit from the United Nations Inspector, Mr. Heiner Bielefeldt to verify if Vietnam in compliance with UN regulations on freedom of speech and religion. The action of sending such notice would portrait an urgent need of improving human rights but at the same time it would serve as a trap notice to make the defendants confessing on the charge that they always denied.
My family have always affirmed and insisted that my father has done nothing wrong and innocent to any charges. He only performed his civil rights which have always been allowed in the Constitutions of Vietnam. In addition, there were several times security inspector agent mentioning the fact that the arrest of my father served as a way to retain good diplomatic with China (My father wrote articles against China telling the situation that Vietnam government has given up land borders and water territories to China. He also called demonstration against the aggressive China). Therefore, many appeals and complaints from our family were not considered and reviewed. The overall of this case would also portrait a situation that the Vietnam government can arbitrarily arrest and release anyone with fabricating evidences set up by the authorities as it has been the case when they arrested my father.
Please be reminded that in the previous visits to my father and he said “he rather stayed in prison to death to awake the people realizing thereal political situation in Vietnam.”
The trial of Free Press Club was brought to trial on September 24, 2012 with three (3) defendants- Nguyễn Văn Hải (my father), Tạ Phong Tần and Phan Thanh Hải, which my father received the most severe sentence with 12 years in prison and 5 year of house arrest. He was locked and isolated from other inmates without cause or any reason. He has attempted to appeal the mistreatment at the prison where he stayed but the appeals were locked many times by the prison authorities, leading to his hunger strike lasting over 30 days during the months of June and July 2013 to demand the review of the appeal. Also those who helped him during the hunger strike were brutally beaten and transferred to a more remote location (a thousand kilometer away from home) to make the family visit more difficult and miserable like the case of Mr. Nguyễn Xuân Nghĩa.
