Mennonite church worker Le Thi Hong Lien, who reportedly suffers from mental illness due to abuse in prison, news reports said Wednesday, April 27. Compass Direct, a Christian news agency, quoted French News Agency (AFP) as saying that she would be released as part of an amnesty given to 7,751 inmates Saturday, April 30, when Vietnam commemorates the 30th anniversary of the fall of Saigon.
The victory over American forces and their allies in 1975 is considered by the Communist regime as Liberation Day. Lien’s expected release is reportedly two months short of completing her one-year prison sentence on charges of "resisting an officer performing official duty."
PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE
Human rights watchdog Amnesty International considers Lien a "prisoner of conscience, imprisoned solely for the peaceful exercise of her fundamental rights to freedom of expression and association." The Vietnamese government did apparently not mention two other detained Mennonite leaders, the Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang and Evangelist Pham Ngoc Thach, whose three- and two-year sentences on similar "resisting" charges were upheld on appeal on April 12.
An American diplomat reportedly confirmed the news of government plans to release Lien to the Vietnam Mennonite Church. The announced amnesty follows international pressure from human rights groups on behalf of Lien, who had been transferred from a Communist prison in Vietnam to a mental hospital, BosNewsLife learned last month.
She was transported to the Mental Hospital of Bien Hoa, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) north-east of Ho Chi Minh City after "a concerted international appeal to Vietnamese authorities to provide Ms. Lien with the care and treatment she needs," said the Mennonite World Conference (MWC).
MENTAL TROUBLES
Her father, Nguyen Quang Du, also sent a letter to "high officials asking that she be treated because she was weak and mentally deranged," added MWC, a global community of Christian churches who trace their beginning to the 16th-century Radical Reformation in Europe.
Human rights watchdog have linked the mental health problems of the 21-year old woman to torture and other abuse in prisons since June 2004 when she was arrested along with a number of other members of the Mennonite community.
Lien’s parents reported that she had lost her mind in prison and did not recognize them. "As they prayed with her, she did not even look at any of them," added the MWC, describing the first visit. Prison officials allegedly told her parents that Lien had no control over bodily functions. Lien’s body showed signs of "severe abuse" reported visitors who saw her.
TORTURE ACTS
At the mental hospital, she has recently begun to speak again, recalling acts of torture and abuse, Compass Direct reported. Those reportedly include drug injections, frequent and severe beatings, electric shock, food deprivation and verbal abuse. She has apparently difficulty using her jaw, which was broken by beatings.
Among the first words she reportedly spoke to her parents at the mental hospital were: “I am now in great suffering from the top of my head to the extremities of my body. Father, please pray for me. I am very tired.” BosNewsLife was not able to independently confirm the statement, but it seemed in line with other letters received earlier.
"I comforted my daughter by praying to our Lord Jesus,” her father reportedly said. An unidentified source close to Lien was quoted as saying that “she still has a long way to go in her physical recovery, let alone her psychological and spiritual healing. Without God’s help, she will never be the same again."
PARENTS PLEASED
Lien’s parents and the Vietnam Mennonite Church expressed thanks to all "who prayed and spoke out on behalf of the young woman," and asked fellow Christians to continue to pray for her full recovery. Among other well-known Christian dissidents still detained are Rev. Pham Ngoc Lien, sentenced in 1987 to 20 years for “putting out hostile propaganda” and four Montagnards sentenced in February 2004.
Another prisoner of conscience, the Rev. Than Van Truong of the Baptist General Conference of Vietnam, an unregistered house church organization, remains in the Bien Hoa Mental Hospital after his transfer from prison last September, Compass Direct reported.
Truong reportedly sent an “SOS” to the United Nations Human Rights Commission saying he fears for his life because he protested the diagnosis that he is mentally ill and petitioned to be returned to prison to fight the false charges against him.
INCREASING MEDICATION
Following these actions, hospital staff greatly increased doses of Truong’s medication, Compass Direct claimed. Dozens of other Protestant Christian prisoners from ethnic minorities remain in custody in the Central Highlands and Northwest provinces, according to human rights watchers.
Vietnamese authorities have denied people are persecuted for their faith and recently offered "house churches" to gather openly if they revoke all ties to groups that Hanoi accuses of supporting anti-government rallies, including a guerrilla group that fought alongside the U.S. during the Vietnam war.
The measures effect local Christians known as Montagnards, who will be allowed "normal religious activities at home or at suitable places in their villages", if they end their support for the United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races (FULRO).
US CONCERNED
However the United States State Department recently expressed concern in its "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices" that the Vietnamese government "continued to restrict significantly organized activities of religious groups that it declared to be at variance with state laws and policies."
It said that "police arbitrarily detained persons based upon their religious beliefs and practice, particularly among ethnic minority groups in the Central and Northwest Highlands. In 2003 and 2002, there were also reports that two Protestants in those areas were beaten and killed for reasons connected to their faith."
Analysts say Communist authorities remain concerned about especially the growing number of evangelical Christians, although they currently comprise only 1% of the population, according to estimates. Seven out of ten Vietnamese people are Buddhists, although ancestor worship and animism permeate Vietnamese life and society, said Open Doors, a group investigating the plight of persecuted Christians. (With Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent, BosNewsLife)
