Hanoi – On the afternoon of February 27, engineer Phuong Nam Do Nam Hai, and veteran, Nguyen Khac Toan, visited an internet café located at 51, Tran Xuan Soan Street, Ngo Thoi Nhiem District, Hoan Kiem County, Hanoi. At around 5pm, while the two were accessing the internet, 6 police officers enter the premises and charged them with being in violation of the law. As the exchanges continued the number of police officers increased to 20, both uniformed and in plain clothes. When the officers initially entered, Mr. Phuong Nam was in the process of reading his emails. The officers immediately escorted the two men from the computer terminals to examine the email accounts in question; gaining access to over 100 personal emails. In response to the situation, Mr. Phuong Nam vehemently protested, stating that this was an invasion of his privacy. Disregarding his objections, they printed several letters and documents found in his account as evidence.
Mr. Phuong Nam’s ardent opposition sparked anger from a uniformed police officer who lunged forward to strike at him, but was held back by another officer. Seeing the situation escalate out of control, Mr. Nguyen Khac Toan opposed the display of aggression and disregard for the law. Mr. Toan reasoned that if the two men had in fact violated the law, the police only had the right to bring the case to trial, not the right to use violence; particularly given that the two men had yet to be found guilty by a court of law. The same officer who had just attempted to strike Mr. Phuong Nam turned around to attack Mr. Toan, but another officer intervened
At around 7:30pm, the officers escorted the two men to the local police station, at 59 Pho Hue Street, Ngo Thoi Nhiem District, Hoan Kiem County, Hanoi, where Mr. Toan was questioned until 9:00pm and Mr. Phuong Nam until 9:30pm. Before they were discharged both men were required to make formal statements and were issued letters requesting a second interview at 8:00am following morning, with the Security and Investigations Unit, of the Department of Security, at 7 Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street, Hai Ba Trung County, Hanoi.
In the statement, they charged Mr. Toan with breeching of the conditions of his house arrest, by being outside the established boundaries without authorisation to meet another democracy activist, and using the internet. Mr. Toan only accepted the charge of breeching the conditions of his house arrest, but defended his right to access the internet. Mr. Phuong Nam was charged with violating Decree 55, which prohibits people from visiting banned websites. Upon this charge, he challenged authorities that there is currently no enacted legislation that specifies which websites have been outlawed. Hence, his statement read: “I have only exercised my liberties, which include the freedom of information that is clearly stated in Article 69 of the Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, and Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which the Vietnamese Government is a signatory. I have not violated any laws, and as such I object to the arbitrary actions Department A-42 officers, who have unlawfully restricted my right to freedom of information and freedom of correspondence.
An hour after the two men were released, correspondent Nguyen Khanh from RFA (Radio Free Asia) was informed of the situation, and conducted interviews with Mr. Phuong Nam and Professor Tran Khue. This interview will be broadcast on RFA at 6:30am, on 28/2/2006.
