Read more on this topic in Vietnamese.
Activist Pham Thanh Nghien, who took refuge in the United States last year, says Vietnamese police harassed her family shortly after she accepted a human rights award at a ceremony in Texas.
Nghien, 47, a former political prisoner, received the 2024 Vietnam Human Rights Award on behalf of prisoner of conscience Do Nam Trung at the ceremony in Houston on Dec. 15.
On Monday, just over a week later, Hai Phong City Police visited her sister’s house saying they wanted to check who was living there. An officer asked questions about Nghien, including her job and address in the U.S. They also quizzed relatives about the book “Life Behind Bars,” she wrote in 2017. Officers took a statement from her sister and asked her to sign it but didn’t give her a copy, Nghien said.
“I am very worried about my family,” Nghien told Radio Free Asia. “I don’t know what they will do in the future because in Vietnam they face many risks such as harassment, arrest and even imprisonment.”
Nghien said the behavior of the police was a form of transnational repression. By intimidating her relatives, the authorities were trying to threaten her into silence because of her outspoken criticism of Vietnam’s human rights violations and articles critical of the top leader, Communist Party General Secretary To Lam.
Nghien said in spite of this she would continue to speak out, adding that years of harassment at the hands of Vietnamese authorities had failed to silence her.
RFA called police in Hai Phong city and An Hai district but were told to contact police in Dong Hai ward. The reporter repeatedly called the ward police number but no one answered.
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Nghien was sentenced to four years in prison and three years’ house arrest in 2010 for “propaganda against the state,” two years after police raided her home and arrested her during a crackdown against dissidents.
In April 2023, she went to the U.S. to avoid harassment following her release. Later that month, the police visited the house her family had rented while her two sisters were cleaning it before returning it to the landlord. She said the police took statements from both sisters because they thought the two had helped her flee the country.
At the end of May this year, Nghien received a text message from a man calling himself Trong, an officer of Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security. He said he was in Texas on vacation and invited her to dinner. Nghien declined to go and reported the incident to the FBI and the U.S. State Department.
Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Mike Firn.
