June 28, 2008
When we heard that Vi Duc Hoi’s mother was sick (liver cancer), Pham Van Troi and I took the bus from Luong Yen station to visit them in Huu Lung district in Lang Son province. After two hours, we arrived at Vi Duc Hoi’s house. Hoi invited us to have lunch with him. During lunch, four policemen arrived to do an “ID check”. This did not take long because we understood it is their duty and cooperated with them and invited them for tea.
After 20 minutes, I excused myself to take an afternoon nap. A few minutes later, several people arrived at Vi Duc Hoi’s house. They came to hold a public denunciation. A middle-aged party member said, “Our neighborhood is not recognized as a good neighborhood because of Vi Duc Hoi.” I find this comical because the bus attendant told me that the neighborhood is full of drug addicts.
It was the war veterans’ turn to accuse. A man wearing a military shirt said: “You are a traitor. In your writings you badmouthed the Party and the state.” When Hoi asked whether he had read any of his articles, he admitted he had not. Everybody started yelling at Vi Duc Hoi, calling him a traitor; however, no one has ever read any of his writings.
Unable to settle the matter, they asked us to come to the People’s Committee headquarters.
We then requested police escort for our safety. Shortly later, several policemen in uniform arrived to escort us to the People’s Committee on foot. Along the way, several strangers on motorcycles tried to run us over and assaulted us, while others pulled our hair.
At the headquarters, as we were sitting in the reception room, a man slapped my face and threw all our personal belongings on the table. They turned off our cell phones and asked us to move to the next room. As we left the reception room, a stranger suddenly appeared and punched me in the stomach. I was knocked to the floor and I couldn’t breathe, nor could I get up. Two policemen pulled me to a chair, perhaps unwilling to see such an ugly scene. After 5 minutes sitting in the chair, I was finally able to recover. The person sitting in front of me for the interrogation was the Assistant District Chief. The first question was: “How long have you known Hoi and under what circumstances?” I told them we are friends.
The second question was regarding the purpose of my visit. I said we came to visit his sick mother. Then they asked me about my place of residence, the members of my family, and their professions and addresses.
In the end, they asked us to sign an agreement not to visit Vi Duc Hoi’s house. I answered that it’s not a crime for Vietnamese citizens to visit each other and it would be an embarrassment if foreigners were to learn of this absurd agreement.
The police seemed to concur but asked that we write something on the agreement unless we wanted to be held until 11 PM. I thought of the danger of leaving the police station late at night so I wrote that I promise not to violate the law and accept any responsibility if I come back to Lang Son.
They took us to the main highway so we could catch a bus to Hanoi. Before we entered the car, a man punched Pham Van Troi and threw an object at my head. We requested that they drive us further but they said we could catch a bus anywhere on the highway and dropped us off at an intersection. As soon as we got out of the car, we were attacked by about 20 people in front of the police. I had no idea what had happened except for the sounds of the strikes. When I finally opened my eyes, Troi’s face was covered in blood. I had no handkerchief so I had to wipe off the blood with my shirt. The blood blinded him in one eye. A policeman later gave him some paper towels to clean off the blood then they called a bus to take us back to Hanoi.
I want to ask: when will the people in Vietnam be free to visit each other?
Ngo Quynh
