On this website*, not even a month ago on November 12, 2011, we reported the 08:00AM raid conducted by a 200-men contingent of the Quảng Nam Provincial Public Security Forces on a little house in Tam Kỳ, Quảng Nam. It was the house of writer Huỳnh Ngọc Tuấn 58, his daughter Huỳnh Thục Vy, 26, and his son Huỳnh Trọng Hiếu, 23. Ostensibly, the purpose of the November 12 raid was to look for evidence of “reactionary” activities that that could “undermine national unity.” [1]. In reality, and as everyone now knows, it was a “shock and awe” attack meant to terrorize, deter and ultimately deprive members of the Huynh family their rights to think and to speak freely. Never mind that such rights are firmly established and granted to all citizens of Vietnam in Article 69 of the Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnamese [2] as well as Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that The United Nations adopted in 1948 [3].
Today we follow-up with a report on yet another raid on the same house by the same 200 or so members of the Quảng Nam Provincial Public Security Forces.
This time, they came in the afternoon of December 2, 2011 and around 2PM, when there were just two defenseless women, Huỳnh Thục Vy and her aunt, Huỳnh Thị Thu Hồng, a younger sister of her father. We thank reporter Thanh Quang from Radio Free Asia for a very detailed account of what transpired when he interviewed Ms. Huỳnh Thục Vy on the same day that the raid happened. We have taken the liberty to translate his account into English from the original Vietnamese, as seen below [4].
Thanh Quang: According to you, Huỳnh Thục Vy, why are they so heavy handed this time around?
Huỳnh Thục Vy: Yes. Maybe it was because I made and released on the web too many videos and photos of the last raid that caused them to feel bad or ashamed, whatever, and so this time around they pulled all the stops and acted in a very horrific manner. They said that if you even pull out a phone it will be confiscated; in the end, they confiscated six phones from our home.
Thanh Quang: We understand that your cousin, Mr. Huỳnh Ngọc Lễ, the son of an older brother of your dad, was arrested during the raid, what is Lễ’s situation right now?
Huỳnh Thục Vy: Currently, his situation is very critical. This is because I don’t know what’s happening to him. Our family is very worried because we don’t have any clue as to his whereabouts. They took him away and kept him out of sight. We will start looking for him tomorrow morning, we will be asking people to help us find out where is he is being detained, but right now we don’t even know how he is doing. Our family is very worried!
Thanh Quang: What is the status of your father Huỳnh Ngọc Tuấn and your younger brother Huỳnh Trọng Hiếu at this moment?
Huỳnh Thục Vy: Yes. Everyone in our family is safe now, even though they did beat us up, they did strike us, they did twist our arms behind our back to beat us up, because there were so many of them, you know. In our household, we have just two aunties, my dad, my brother and me. Yet tens, even hundreds of them came, and they caused us to panic and to be very frightened. Right now, my arms and legs are all black and blue. They even pulled and ripped open my aunt blouse as well as mine. They did the same to my brother’s shirt.
But, despite all the things that happened, our family spirit is high, but we do have one very big worry, and that concerns our cousin Huỳnh Ngọc Lễ. I hope that RFA could spread the news about the arrest of Huỳnh Ngọc Lễ so that he could be protected, because the Public Security Forces have falsely accused him of “obstructing a public official who was carrying out his official duty,” because when two female members of the same Public Security Forces rushed toward me and proceeded to beat me up, he jumped In trying to stop them from beating me so as to protect me, thus causing several other members of the Forces to move in to arrest and take him away, and then to falsely accuse him of “obstructing a public official who was carrying out his official duty.” Previously, at the last raid on November 8, 2011, when he was supporting us by taking pictures of the raid, he was wearing a “No-U” tee-shirt to protest against [China’s] cow tongue [claims in the South China Sea], today he is wearing the same No-U tee-shirt just like the protesters who demonstrated on the streets and so they hated him and they arrested him by falsely accusing him of “obstructing a public official who was carrying out his official duty.”
Thanh Quang: So, did the Public Security Forces tell you why they are entering your home this time around?
Huỳnh Thục Vy: Yes. They came to our house to read to us the decisions that imposed a fine of 100 million VND on my father, 85 million VND on me, and 85 million VND on my younger brother Huynh Trọng Hiếu. They also told us that if we don’t pay the fines at the state Treasury Office within 10 days, they will subject us to enforcement actions.
Thanh Quang: How would you and your loved ones deal with such enforcement actions?
Huỳnh Thục Vy: Right. Our family is very worried, we just don’t know what these enforcement actions are, what they will do. It is very likely that they will seal off the house, confiscate the entire house, confiscate the tools, and confiscate the household goods inside the house. But to be truthful, right now in our home there is nothing worth confiscating! They already confiscated all the computers. I didn’t know it at the time it happened but when my two aunties got back and checked the cabinet where they kept their cash; they found that all the cash was gone. In the last ten days, Vietnamese from overseas sent us around three thousands US Dollars, and we put that cash we received in that cabinet, but, you know, when my aunties came back and opened the cabinet, the entire hoard of cash was gone. You know, we are very worried, and now we are also very outraged.
Thanh Quang: Were there any paperwork for confiscated items, did they create proper records?
Huỳnh Thục Vy: Oh no! They didn’t create any records. The first time they raided our house and confiscated the computers and the printer, they did give us proper paper records to sign and we were allowed to keep a copy for ourselves. In today’s raid, they just took everything without any records, without anything paperwork to document what they took, you see… I am very concerned because we have nothing to prove that they came and terrorized our family. I couldn’t even take a single photo because they confiscated both my cell phone and my camera, and because I was hurting so much from the beating that I was kind of afraid.
Thanh Quang: In general, what is your overall assessment of the recent actions of the Public Security Forces?
Huỳnh Thục Vy: As I see it, if they want to convey to us the administrative rulings against the three of us in our family, all they needed to do was to have a hamlet representative hamlet come by our house and drop them off, or mail the rulings to us using the post office, but they really didn’t have to send hundreds of people swarming into our home as they did. The way they stormed and raided our home meant that their first objective was to terrorize and utterly confuse us, to strike fear in our mind, and then to beat us up, and then to take advantage of the dire state we were in to rob us of our cash.
Secondly, the fact that so many of them participated in the raid on our home means that they want to show to all how strong and numerous they are, and to use what to they did to us as an example of their power, so as to strike fear in the heart of the people of this region and to silence them, to prevent the people from saying anything.
Thanh Quang: As of now, what are the Public Security Forces doing exactly? Are they still surrounding the house?
Huỳnh Thục Vy: Yes. There are several coffee shops about 500 meters from our home, young people play billiard there, they congregate there at all time, several young members of the Public Security Forces are permanent fixtures there, people play billiard, people drink coffee, and once in a while some police cruisers would drive by our house with their sirens blaring.
Thanh Quang: At this point in time, is there anything that Huỳnh Thục Vy would like to say to the public at large?
Huỳnh Thục Vy: Yes, thank you. I would like thank the station for giving me the opportunity to address Radio Free Asia listeners, I am very happy to be able to do so. At this point in time, I would like to ask everyone to help our family communicate with and mobilize international public opinions, mobilize international human rights organizations such as RSF [Reporters Sans Frontieres, or Reporters Without Borders] to get international public opinion to support and protect our family, because given the situation we are currently in, I just don’t know what kind of tricks they will continue to use against our family in the future. Our family is very worried, but our greatest worry is for our cousin Huỳnh Ngọc Lễ.
May I ask that everybody please speak up and intervene to help protect my cousin Huỳnh Ngọc Lễ? All he did was to wear the No-U tee-shirt when he intervened to help our family, and that tee-shirt was the reason why they hated him so much. They falsely accused him of “obstructing a public official who was carrying out his official duty”, they arrested him and they took him away, and our family doesn’t have any idea where he is now. I hope that everybody will speak up, partly to help our family, but primarily to help protect my cousin Huỳnh Ngọc Lễ.
Thanh Quang: Thank you very much, Huỳnh Thục Vy.
Huỳnh Thục Vy: Yes, thank you very much too.”
Additional details on the raids have emerged since the above interview. According to witnesses, when the 85 year old mother of writer Huỳnh Ngọc Tuấn, Mrs. Mai Thị Yến, and her other daughter, Ms. Huỳnh Thị Hường returned to the house, they were also intimidated and searched. Writer Huỳnh Ngọc Tuấn and his son Huỳnh Trọng Hiếu were actually arrested elsewhere and brought back to the house and roughed up before the entire family was lined up and made to listen to the administrative rulings.
These boiled down to the following. Writer Huynh Ngoc Tuan and his children were found to have violated subsection a, Paragraph 7, of Article 6 of Decree Number 63/ND-CP Regulating the Communications Industry as issued by the Government on October 04, 2007, because they use tools within the communications industry – i.e., computers, laptop, USB memory sticks, inkjet printers, internet connections, and websites – to disparage the Party and the Government and thus harm national unity [5]. The fines levied against them are staggering, given that annual per capita income in Vietnam in 2010 is estimated at $USD 3100 [6], specifically:
1. Mr. Huynh Ngọc Tuan must pay a fine of 100,000,000 VN Dong (4,761.90 USD at today’s exchange rate)
2. Ms. Huynh Thục Vy must pay a fine of 85,000,000 VN Dong (4,047.62 USD at today’s exchange rate)
3. Mr. Huỳnh Trọng Hiếu must pay a fine of 85,000,000 VN Dong (4,047.62 USD at today’s exchange rate)
They will have 10 days to pay the above fines at the Treasury Office of the Province of Quang Nam. The state will strictly enforce the administrative rulings if they do not meet the above deadline. [7]
In a letter to the overseas community, writer Huỳnh Ngọc Tuấn has declared that as a matter of principle, he and his children will not pay the fines. Instead, they will appeal the rulings and call on the international community to support them in their principled stand against the oppressive and abusive state [8].
And so that was how a simple administrative ruling regarding a non-criminal violation of a tiny one-sentence subsection of a section of an article of a governmental decree has to be delivered in Vietnam. The ruling will be delivered to its intended recipients during a middle-of-the day military-style home invasion requiring two hundred armed and uniformed members of the Public Security Forces. The home invasion will take place after diligent intelligence work has confirmed that only defenseless female members of the targeted household are present. When raiders from Public Security Forces are in the house, they will be required to beat the targets of the ruling until these poor people are black and blue all over their bodies, and if these people were clothed, it is desirable that their blouses and shirts be ripped off prior to the beatings. And finally it will be necessary to ransack the house in a frenzied search for and confiscation of anything valuable: cell phones, cameras, household goods, and of course money.
As Ms. Huỳnh Thục Vy, the young woman whose blouses was ripped off and whose arms and legs are all black and blue from the severe beatings she received pondered aloud when Radio Free Asia interviewed her, the State of Vietnam, or more specifically the Quang Nam Provincial Public Securities Forces, could simply mail the ruling to them, or send a hamlet official over to tell them the bad news and then hand over the paperwork. It could have been so simple, and infinitely less costly.
But as things are, given that we now live in the age of the internet, news of the raid are spreading worldwide, and international awareness and/or support for the Huỳnh family from individuals inside and outside of Vietnam, foreign governments and legislators, and especially international human rights organizations has increased enormously ever since the first attempt to intimidate the Huỳnh family surfaced in June 2011.
In the days to come, such awareness and support are bound to grow as human rights activists from all over the world work tirelessly to create a momentum to spread far and wide the message about the plight of the Huỳnh family and to seek to mobilize international public opinion in their favor.
But the mystery remains why the Quang Nam Provincial Public Securities Forces, which is under the direct control of the Public Security Ministry, which by its unofficial but often cited motto “We Exist Only as Long As the Party Exists” is the first line of defense of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) against the people it is supposed to serve, chose to escalate to an unprecedented level of intensity the violence against a defenseless family of three. Did they do it to please their superiors who could have blamed them as weak and ineffective in their past attempts to silence and deprive the Huỳnh family of their rights? Were they ordered to do so from the highest levels of the state or the party? Were they after the money, a mere $USD 3,000 when they and their bosses have already stolen billions and billions? Were they trying to regain their honor of thugs by issuing via the raid a stern warning the people of Quảng Nam who did intervene in a quiet show of community strength to protect writer Huỳnh Ngọc Tuấn from arbitrary arrest, and do so twice in a single day back in November? [9] Were they trying to push the entire Huỳnh family into exile? Or, in the worse case possible, were they trying to send a cynical last warning? There could be a zillion explanations, and there could be none. No one really knows.
But this we know: that while all members of the Huỳnh family, including the old grandmother and the two aunties are calm, unafraid and unbowed to the absurd and unconstitutional rulings and the violence and the thievery perpetrated upon then, what the Quang Nam Provincial Public Securities Forces did could only be qualified as pure madness.
And mankind, for thousands of years, has known more than enough about mad people or mad governments and especially about how both will end up. We recall here what the Greeks said, around the time of Euripides, 2580 years ago: “Whom the gods want to destroy, they first made them mad.” [10].
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