Huynh Ngoc Tuan

Attacks and Harassment of Writer Huynh Ngoc Tuan and His Family

Incidents Targeting Huynh Ngoc Tuan And His Family:

On February 20, 2014, Tuan and his son Hieu were violently beaten by a gang of about 10 men wearing masks in Binh Dinh province, where they had been invited to attend a Buddhist memorial service. For details, see the article posted February 20 by Tuan’s daughter, Huynh Thuc Vy.

On February 12, 2014, Radio Free Asia reported that four plainclothes police officers attacked Tuan’s home in Quang Nam, throwing large rocks at his home all evening, which damaged the house and tore huge holes in the roof. Tuan published a report online about the incident.
On December 31, 2013, Tuan was severely beaten by police when he traveled to Hanoi with another activist, Pham Ba Hai, to visit friends who are dissidents and also former prisoners of conscience. While visiting Pham Van Troi with Pham Ba Hai, Le Thi Cong Nhan, her husband Ngo Duy Quyen and their baby, police barged into the home and forced everyone to go to the commune police station. Police singled out Tuan and detained him in a room by himself, where different police officers took turns severely beating him, breaking his sternum. The incident was covered by the press and various blogs, and Tuan himself published a long online article about what happened.
On December 16, 2012, authorities barred Huynh Trong Hieu from going to the US to pick up the Hellmann/Hammett writer’s award from Human Rights Watch on behalf of his father and his sister, blogger Huynh Thuc Vy.

Writer Huynh Ngoc Tuan spent 10 years as a prisoner of conscience after his arrest in 1992 for attempting to send abroad some of his fiction writings that were critical of the government. After his release from prison in 2002 he continued his advocacy, joining Bloc 8406 and publishing memoirs of his 10 years in prison. Since 2011 he and members of his family have faced police surveillance, harassment, interrogation, public denunciation, and confiscation of their property during police searches of their home.

Three of Tuan’s children, two of his sisters, and two of his nephews are active in the struggle for democracy and human rights. In 2013, both Tuan and his oldest daughter, activist blogger Huynh Thuc Vy, received the Hellmann/Hammett prize for persecuted writers from Human Rights Watch. On December, 16, 2013, Vietnamese authorities prevented Tuan’s son, Huynh Trong Hieu, from travelling to the U.S. to collect the award on behalf of Tuan and Vy.

Hyunh Ngoc Tuan after a police beating on December 31, 2013, which left him with a fractured sternum.