Vi Duc Hoi
,Vi Duc Hoi, 57, is a member of the ethnic Tay minority group and a gifted writer, who rose within the ranks of the Vietnamese Communist Party in northern Lang Son province. In 2006 he quietly joined the democracy movement, sending essays to dissident reviews and websites under pen names calling for democracy, pluralism, and human rights. In 2007, after his views became known he was expelled from the party, subject to orchestrated public denunciation sessions, and called a traitor. He then publicly affiliated himself with the dissident To Quoc bulletin and began to circulate his critical writings under his own name. His 2008 memoir, “Facing Reality, My Path to Joining the Democratic Movement" (Doi Mat: Duong di den voi phong trao dan chu), has been widely circulated on the Internet.
Vi Duc Hoi was arrested in October 2010 and charged with conducting propaganda against the state under article 88 of the penal code. He was sentenced to eight years of imprisonment in January 2011, reduced on appeal to five years, followed by three years on probation. At Nam Ha Prison, he was placed in solitary confinement for six months in 2013 after he protested the beating of fellow prisoner Paulus Le Van Son. He was granted early release from prison on April 12, 2014. Vi Duc Hoi, a recipient of the 2011 Helman/Hammett writer's prize, was released from prison in April 2014. |
"The biggest loss for a human being is the loss of the right to be a human being; the biggest criminal is the one who robs others of human rights; the most pitiful person is the one who does not understand human rights; the one who deserves criticism most is the one who forgets human rights; the most cowardly person is the one who accepts the loss of human rights. I once deserved to be criticized and was once a coward." |