Stop Torture: Campaign to Abolish Torture in Vietnam
  • Home
  • Reports: Torture in Vietnam
  • Prisoners of Conscience
    • Abuses in Police Custody and Pre-Trial Detention
    • Post-Trial Abuses
    • Montagnard Prisoners of Conscience
    • Campaign to Free Nguyen Bac Truyen
    • Campaign to Free Y Pum Bya
  • Montagnard Persecution
  • Torture in VN: Who, What, Where
  • Forced Prison Labor
    • Cashews: A Toxic Prison Industry
  • Voices: Survivors of Torture
    • Catholic Parishioner Tran Thanh Tien
    • Chau Hen: Fighting for My Land
    • Buddhist Monk Kim Muon
    • Montagnard Christian Rmah Plun
    • Democracy Activist Bui Kim Thanh
    • Writer Tran Khai Thanh Thuy
  • Advocacy
  • Resources
  • Vietnamese Laws
  • Vietnam's Track Record on Torture
  • About

Prisoners of Conscience in Vietnam

With at least 260 prisoners of conscience, Vietnam is the second largest jailer of peaceful dissidents in Southeast Asia, after Myanmar.
PictureThere are more than 200 prisoners of conscience in Vietnam, according to the Now! Campaign for the Release of Prisoners of Conscience in Vietnam.


In Vietnam, prisoners of conscience are routinely deprived of basic rights from the moment they are arrested until after they finish serving their sentences, when they are placed under probationary detention for up to five years.

​Most are arrested on the basis of imprecisely-defined national security provisions in Vietnam's Criminal Code and other laws that the government uses to imprison peaceful political and religious dissidents. 
​ Rights groups estimate that approximately 246 prisoners of conscience are currently detained or imprisoned in Vietnam, the majority on national security charges.

Montagnard Prisoners of Conscience

While indigenous minority Montagnards make up only two percent of Vietnam's population, they are disproportionately represented among the country's unjustly imprisoned prisoners of conscience. For more information, about Montagnard Persecution, please click here.
Picture

Abuses of Prisoners of Conscience

A. Abuses in Police Custody and Pre-Trial Detention​

The detention of many political and religious dissidents in Vietnam starts with their arrest and abduction by police, and then with their disappearance. (Read more.)

​B. Abuses In Prison: Isolation And Harsh Treatment

Once tried and sentenced to prison, prisoners of conscience are physically separated from the general inmate population and stripped of many of the rights accorded to other prisoners under Vietnamese law. (Read more.)

Circular 37: “Legal" Basis for Vietnam’s Harsh Treatment of Prisoners of Conscience

The segregation and discriminatory treatment of dissidents sentenced for national security crimes is provided by Ministry of Public Security Circular 37.  Issued in 2011, the circular calls for the isolation of prisoners of conscience in special "security sections" of prisons, where they are subject to harsh treatment and denial of many of the rights accorded to common criminal offenders. (Read more.)
© 2022 Campaign to Abolish Torture in Vietnam. 
All rights reserved. For permission to reprint any of CAT-VN's reports, press releases, or other information please contact us first.