UN experts voiced concern for the safety of a jailed Vietnamese activist who has launched a hunger strike over his detention conditions, urging Hanoi to stop convicting and mistreating rights defenders.
In a statement, 10 independent United Nations rights experts highlighted the situation of lawyer and environmental rights defender Dang Dinh Bach, who they said had just launched his third hunger strike in detention.
“We are extremely concerned about the safety and well-being of... Mr Bach. On top of discrimination and differentiated treatment in detention, there are reports that Mr Bach was being attacked and beaten up in custody,” the experts said on Wednesday.
Bach, who worked to inform people whose health and livelihoods were threatened by coal projects and other polluting industries, was arrested in June 2021, and was sentenced to five years in prison for tax evasion.
“We express our strong concern about the chilling effect that the mistreatment and deprivation of liberty of Mr Bach have on the fundamental freedoms of peaceful assembly and of expression in Vietnam,” said the experts.
The experts, who are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council but do not speak on behalf of the United Nations, pointed out that Bach was being held eight hours away from his family, on whom he depended for food, as per his vegetarian diet.
Held in a wing of the Prison No.6 in Nghe An province, he has been deprived of supplies like books and hygiene items, and denied access to hot water and traditional medicines, they said.
Communication and visits from his family and his lawyer were also restricted, said the experts.
They pointed out that the working group concluded last year that Bach’s detention was unlawful. — AFP
