'Well-known Human Rights Activists Can Thi Theu and Her Son Trinh Ba Tu Placed in Hard Prison Conditions Amid Hot Weather after Brave Objection in First-instance Hearing', 21 July 2021

As a revenge of their brave behavior during their first-instance hearing on May 5, authorities in Vietnam’s northern province Hoa Binh have imprisoned well-known human rights advocates Mrs. Can Thi Theu and her second son Mr. Trinh Ba Tu in hard prison conditions... They were placed in small closed cells without ventilators or fans amid the hot summer weather in Vietnam’s northern region with the temperature goes above 40 Celsius degrees most of the daytime, her daughter Trinh Thi Thao told Defend the Defenders.

When the family questioned about the inhumane treatment against the 59-year-old mother and the 32-year-old son, the Hoa Binh Police Department and the detention facility said they act under instruction of the Ministry of Public Security... The family has sent petitions to many state agencies including the Ministry of Public Security to question the inhumane treatment against the mother and the son, however, they have not received responses from them.

Mrs. Theu, who was imprisoned twice for a total 35 months in the 2014-2018 period for protesting Hanoi’s authorities’s seizure of farming land from her family and other farmers in Duong Noi commune, Ha Dong district, was arrested on June 24 last year together with her two sons Tu and his older brother Trinh Ba Phuong. The trio was charged with “conducting anti-state propaganda” for their advocacy for land rights, human rights, and multi-party democracy, especially their support for land petitioners in Dong Tam commune, Hoai Duc district, Hanoi, before and after the bloody attack of 3,000 riot policemen in the commune on January 9, 2020 in which police brutally killed local spiritual leader Le Dinh Kinh and arrested about 30 others most of whom later were sentenced to heavy imprisonment and two were given the capital punishment as they were found responsible for controversial deaths of three police officers during the raid...

Meanwhile, 36-year-old Phuong is still held incommunicado by the Hanoi Police Department, together with land petitioner Nguyên Thi Tam, who is also a human rights defender and being arrested on the same day on the same allegation...