Vietnamese dissident near death due to hunger strike

Hanoi - One of nine Vietnamese dissidents sentenced to prison in early October remains on hunger strike and may be near death, his wife said after visiting him Friday. Vu Van Hung, a 43-year-old high school teacher, was sentenced to three years in prison and three years of probation on October 7 for hanging a banner advocating multiparty democracy from a Hanoi overpass in August 2008. 'He is so weak that he cannot walk by himself,' said Hung's wife, Ly Thi Tuyet Mai. 'Two policemen had to carry him by his armpits to meet me.' Mai said Hung had not eaten and had drunk nothing but water since his conviction, and had lost 30 kilogrammes. Hung is demanding that an appeals court reverse the verdict against him and that the prison cease placing him in cells together with common criminals. Mai said the prison guards responsible for Hung had asked her to encourage him to eat. 'They told me if he dies, the people who suffer the most would be himself and his family, not the jailers,' Mai said. 'If he wants to struggle against the court, he needs to live first.' Hung is being held at Prison Number 1 in Hanoi's Tu Liem district, about 15 kilometres from downtown. Hung was one of nine dissidents sentenced to two to six years in prison in the second week of October for violating Article 88 of Vietnam's legal code, which forbids 'spreading propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.' The trials elicited protests from foreign countries and international human rights organizations. Reporters Without Borders said October 12 that the convictions were 'manifestly violations of free expression'. Human Rights Watch announced in early October that it had awarded grants to six Vietnamese writers, three of them currently in jail. The group noted that Nguyen Xuan Nghia, a 2008 winner of grants for writers who have been victims of political persecution and are in financial need, was among the dissidents sentenced. The US embassy in Hanoi said October 14 that it was 'deeply disturbed' by the convictions. It urged the government to 'honor its international human rights commitments and immediately and unconditionally release' the prisoners. Another 2008 Human Rights Watch award winner, novelist Tran Khai Thanh Thuy, was 'beaten and arrested after she publicly expressed her support for the nine activists' sentenced, the US Embassy noted. Thuy remains in jail while police pursue assault charges against her in connection with the incidents in which she says she was beaten.