Vietnam detains protester in drug clinic: lawyer

Vietnam has sent a female activist to a notorious drug rehabilitation centre for two years without facing trial as an apparent punishment for taking part in anti-China protests, her lawyer said yesterday.
Bui Thi Minh Hang, 47, who participated in a series of demonstrations in 2011, was arrested after joining a small rally in Ho Chi Minh City on November 27, her lawyer Ha Huy Son told AFP.
She was transferred to the Thanh Ha rehabilitation centre in northern Vinh Phuc province the next day where, according to Son, she is to be detained for two years without going before a court.
The lawyer said he lodged a complaint with local authorities but had received no reply.
“I want to see her but the relevant authorities prevented me from visiting her,” he said.
US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) says Vietnam’s rehabilitation centres fail to provide appropriate treatment and are rife with physical abuse.
The UN’s special rapporteur on the right to health recently called for them to be closed.
HRW confirmed the decision to lock Hang up under rules which deputy Asia director Phil Robertson said showed “the true face of Vietnam’s so-called ‘rule of law’”.
“Guilt is presumed of anyone under suspicion and officials are empowered to make arbitrary detention decisions against anyone they consider to be a trouble-maker,” Robertson told AFP.
Hang’s detention prompted over two dozen intellectuals, including professors, writers and a 96-year-old army general, to send an open letter to President Truong Tan Sang in late December demanding her immediate release.
The signatories said Hang had expressed her views peacefully and her treatment violated international conventions on human rights.
Political demonstrations are still rare in authoritarian Vietnam, but an increase in tensions over China’s perceived aggressiveness in the South China Sea saw rallies occur more frequently in Hanoi last year.
Analysts said the first protests were tolerated because they helped express Hanoi’s displeasure with Beijing. Others were broken up by police and Hang was briefly detained on at least two occasions.
Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in November called for a law on demonstrations after the marches showed gaps in existing legislation.
Hang was in favour of the proposed new legislation and was arrested at a rally supporting the plans.