Translated by Le Anh Hung – Edited by Tuan Dang
Since 21 April 2008, Le Anh Hung and his wife, Le Thi Phuong Anh, have been persistently denouncing horrible crimes of Vietnamese Communist Party and State leaders. They are Hoang Trung Hai, a Chinese-Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister, Nguyen Tan Dung, Prime Minister and Nong Duc Manh, General Secretary of Vietnam Communist Party at that time.
On 5 August 2008, the Quang Tri Provincial Police invited Le Anh Hung for an interviewing and co-operation session about the denunciation letter which he had sent to various concerned State organizations and the press via the Internet. The meeting’s result was presented in a meeting minute. Le Anh Hung signed it as well as each of dozens of pages of his accusation document. He reiterated his denunciation, confirming that he was responsible for his words before the laws and the public.
After that, neither Quang Tri Police had replied or settled Le Anh Hung’s open and legitimate accusation letter nor any government organization had shown any concern. The Law on Complaints and Denunciations recognized denunciations via the Internet; besides, Le Anh Hung had worked with the Quang Tri Police and signed every pages of his denunciation letter.
On 25 December 2009, after sending his denunciation letter via the Internet for 20 times, Le Anh Hung was arrested by Quang Tri Provincial Police in an Internet café on charges of “propaganda against the State”. On 31 December 2009, Quang Tri Provincial Police pressed criminal charges of slander against him. After that, they took him to the Central Institute of Forensic Psychiatry in Hanoiand the doctors there “concluded” that he was suffered from “paranoia”. They then took him to the Da Nang Psychiatric Hospital for compulsory treatment from 4 May to 24 August 2010.
After his release from the psychiatric institution, Le Anh Hung continued to send his denunciation letter to various state organizations as well as to the press. This time, his denunciation letter had a Statement of Truth by his wife Le Thi Phuong Anh (an oath by herself), who had been an important member in the drug ring of Chinese-Vietnamese Deputy PM Hoang Trung Hai. The Statement of Truth says: “I completely agree with my husband’s denunciation of Mr. Nong Dung Manh, Mr. Nguyen Tan Dung and Mr. Hoang Trung Hai. I was a member of Deputy PM Hoang Trung Hai’s drug ring. I was first-hand witness and provided my husband with the information.”
No state organizations, however, took on his denunciation letter or replied it, despite that many websites both within and without the country had published this horrible letter.
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| Statement of Truth by Le Thi Phuong Anh |
On 16 November 2011, Le Anh Hung went to the Quang Tri Police Department again to personally hand in his denunciation letter (together with his wife’s Statement of Truth). After receiving the letter, the Quang Tri Police Department did not resolve the case according to their jurisdiction. They should have replied him or transferred the case to the Ministry of Public Security for settlement and notified the denouncer.
On 6 June 2012, Le Anh Hung approached a member of parliament, Duong Trung Quoc, and personally handed him his letter of denunciation, and MP Duong Trung Quoc transferred the letter to National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Sinh Hung on 19 June 2012.
While the denunciation letter had not been handled properly and the denouncer had a regular job, on 24 January 2013, Le Anh Hung was suddenly forced to a psychiatric institution named Hanoi Social Sponsorship Centre Number 2 by Hanoi Police.
Due to public and media’s attention, both inside and outside the country, especially human rights groups, Le Anh Hung was set free on 5 February 2013, after 12 days of illegal detention in this horrible psychiatric institution.
On 18 July 2013, more than a year after receiving his denunciation letter, MP Duong Trung Quoc handed Le Anh Hung an official letter by the Ministry of Public Security replying the National Assembly about Le Anh Hung’s denunciation. In this official letter, the MPS reiterated the investigation conclusions by the Quang Tri Police back in 2010 that Le Anh Hung was suffered from “paranoia” and thus rejected the denunciation.
This official letter by the MPS was totally illegal, because they did not take Le Thi Phuong Anh’s handwritten Statement of Truth into consideration at all. Moreover, even if Le Anh Hung was really “paranoid”, it was just psychiatric examination result in 2010; if they wanted to conclude that he was “paranoid” in a new legal case in 2013, they had to carry out psychiatric examination again. Especially, Le Anh Hung is an excellent English translator; he even translated books in difficult fields as philosophy and economics. Moreover, he is also a blogger with a
well-known blog; his articles have been published in popular websites such as
VOA, RFA, Bauxite Việt
Nam, etc. for years.
Disagreeing with the MPS’s reply, on 16 September 2013, the couple Le Anh Hung – Le Thi Phuong Anh personally handed another letter of denunciation to MP Duong Trung Quoc. This time Le Thi Phuong Anh signed the letter together with her husband. MP Duong Trung Quoc transferred the letter to the MPS.
Concerned state organizations previously kept insisting that Le Anh Hung was “paranoid” in order to ignore the denunciation; but when Le Thi Phuong Anh, who had been an important member in Chinese-Vietnamese Deputy PM Hoang Trung Hai’s drug ring, personally signed the denunciation letter, the MPS remained silent. Surprisingly, this happens when information about the denunciation is rife on the Internet and international media have
many times reported about the case.
While the denunciation has not been handled properly, the denouncers have been victims of so many tricks of harassment, terror and retribution by those whom they denounce. For example, Le Anh Hung was
illegally taken to a psychiatric institution on 24 January 2013, or Le Thi Phuong Anh was
kidnapped by underground henchmen of Chinese-Vietnamese Hoang Trung Hai in the afternoon of 8 October 2013 near the centre of Dong Ha City.
In the morning of 15 May 2014, Phuong Anh went to Dong Nai province on motorbike with her friends Pham Minh Vu and Do Nam Trung. Do Nam Trung rode a motorbike with Phuong Anh, and Pham Minh Vu rode another one. This was the first time they had been to Dong Nai so they kept asking people for directions. This proved that Phuong Anh came to Dong Nai unplanned, she had no acquaintances in Dong Nai. (Le Anh Hung says that he has strong evidence that in that morning, Phuong Anh intended to go to Dong Nai alone, by bus or motorbike service, but then the two friends called her and proposed a plan to go with her.)
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| Phuong Anh asked one FB friend for directions (Photo by Le Anh Hung) |
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| Phuong Anh asked her husband for directions (Photo by Le Anh Hung) |
Just minutes after Phuong Anh sent messages to her Facebook friend and husband to ask for directions (her last message was sent at 10:12 AM), Phuong Anh and her friends were stopped by a group of 50 policemen. They asked her to erase all the pictures that she had taken along the roads that morning on her phone. She erased the pictures as requested, then she and her friends were detained. Phuong Anh was able to call her husband at 10:17 AM, informing him of the detention. That means she was stopped by the Dong Nai police at about 10:15 AM.
According to the “Notification of Criminal Detention” which the Dong Nai Police sent to Do Nam Trung’s family, he was detained for “disturbing public order”. In the official letter No. 467/NG-CÂu dated 1 July 2014 to the Embassy of Germany in Hanoi, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared: “Investigation results show that these people were filming, taking pictures, reporting distorted information in order to incite riots, infringing national and communal interests.”
In fact, in early 15 May 2014,
Phuong Anh posted a status on her Facebook that “Students were mobilized to distribute leaflets,
showing what is right or wrong to do for the workers,” together with pictures of leaflets appealing to workers to end riots.
Phuong Anh thus could not “film, take pictures, report distorted information” and “incite riots, infringing national and communal interests” while she had to keep asking people for directions (because both her Facebook friend and her husband did not instruct her) in just two to four minutes after sending the last message to her husband. Phuong Anh had no motivation whatsoever to “incite riots” whereas she herself had posted right information on her Facebook as noted above. Ironically, instead of praising Phuong Anh for what she had done responsibly, they arrested and prosecuted her. Where is JUSTICE then?
To conclude, that the Dong Nai Police detained, incarcerated and prosecuted Phuong Anh is totally illegal and very suspicious.
Taking the fact of the denunciation over the last 6 years which Le Anh Hung and Phuong Anh are the denouncers into consideration coupled with strong, clear evidences as mentioned above, I am convinced that this case is a retribution targeting the denouncer Phuong Anh in order to silence her. The denounced, who have been leading this country and having at their disposal the entire mechanism of police– procuracy –justice system, will try everything to revenge and silence Phuong Anh.
We are here to appeal to the public, both inside and outside of Viet Nam, to pay attention to and raise your voice about this case in order not only to protect Phuong Anh, defend Justice, but more importantly, defend Vietnam.
All of us have power, again please raise your voice to protect Le Thi Phuong Anh!
Sau hai lần tạm hoãn, phiên toà phúc thẩm xét xử chị Bùi Thị Minh Hằng, anh Nguyễn Văn Minh và chị Nguyễn Thị Thuý Quỳnh sẽ diễn ra ở Tp Cao Lãnh, tỉnh Đồng Tháp vào ngày mai. 
