Vietnam Noodle Vendor Jailed For Five Years

While in prison, Bui Tuan Lam was denied access to a lawyer until two weeks before his trial. His wife Le Thi Thanh Lam was not allowed to attend.

She told the BBC’s Vietnamese service that she and their three daughters have been allowed to see him only once since his arrest, and then for only 10 minutes.

“We could not say much but my husband sang a song with our daughters before saying goodbye. My husband was the one who told me about the trial, otherwise, I would not have known about it.”

Three days ago, Le Thi Thanh Lam got a call from a stranger who wanted to deliver a letter from her husband. He had written messages to her on scraps of paper and thrown them on the ground in hopes of someone picking them up and delivering them to her.

“In a letter, my husband wrote in January, he said that he would not plead guilty as he believed in what he was fighting for. He encouraged us to be brave and said it would be a miracle if she received those pieces of paper,” she told the BBC.

“No matter how many years the court will sentence him to, I completely object to it because my husband is not guilty of anything. That he is being imprisoned, for a day, a year, or 10 years, is a crime.”

There are currently at least 170 people in prison in Vietnam for expressing views unacceptable to the communist party or doing anything seen as a threat to the party’s monopoly on power.

Last month, dissident blogger Duong Van Thai, who was recognized as a refugee by the UN, was abducted in Thailand. It was widely believed to have been carried out by Vietnamese state agents, who were also behind similar abductions in other countries.

Climate activists Nguy Thi Khanh, Dang Dinh Bach, Mai Phan Loi, and Bach Hung Duong, who have been campaigning against Vietnam’s reliance on coal-fired power, were also convicted of tax evasion and jailed in recent months, a punishment rarely given to other alleged tax evaders.