Nguyen Van Dung in a 2021 interview with Project88

On May 8, 2024, Nguyen Van Dung’s body washed ashore on the Red River near Chau Son Village. He had gone missing two days after being released from police custody, where he was held and interrogated for three straight days. Nguyen Van Dung, also known as Dung Aduku, was an activist for over a decade prior to his death, and the exact circumstances of how he arrived at the river that day remain unknown.

Dung had been on the run for almost a year by the time he was detained without legal documents on April 22, 2024. It has now been four months since his detention, and state media has still not reported on Dung’s detention or death.

The police had violated Dung’s rights several times prior to his 2024 detention, including brutally beating him and leaving him on the side of the road in 2016. We call for an immediate and public investigation into the circumstances around Nguyen Van Dung’s detention and death.

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Nguyen Van Dung was not the best-known agitator of the early 2010s, but, as one friend described him to us, he was a firekeeper. Three activists interviewed for this report told Project88 that Dung often carried the torch behind the scenes, connecting people, positing new ideas, and keeping lines of communication open. “Because of his strong convictions, he wanted freedom and progress not just for himself, but also for others, as well as the community at large,” Dung’s close friend and fellow activist Pham Thanh Nghien told Project88. 

At the height of his activism, in 2013, Dung was arrested for allegedly having sexual relations with a minor. He was convicted in a closed trial with no lawyer and sentenced to three years in prison. Project88 has not been able to investigate this conviction, and we therefore do not claim that Dung is innocent. However, many activists, including the three sources we spoke with for this report, believe Dung was the victim of a police set-up designed to silence his activism. Regardless of whether or not Dung committed this crime, Dung’s rights were violated at many points in his activism career. Even flawed people deserve due process.

Dung became an activist in the 2010s after seeing a viral video of police confiscating land from an elderly woman. He was one of the first members of No-U; he was also a member of the Brotherhood for Democracy and a vocal supporter of Thai Ha Diocese in Hanoi and of political prisoners, often attending their trials. He joined Nhat Ky Yeu Nuoc (Patriotic Diary), a group of Facebookers that wrote critical social commentaries, and in 2011, became the main administrator.

After his release from prison in 2016, Dung continued his activism. All three sources interviewed by Project88 confirmed that Dung was still involved in activism until his death but kept a relatively low profile. He continued to serve as a main administrator for the Patriotic Diary Facebook page, which at one point amassed nearly a million followers, and he would still meet with other activists and encourage them through difficult periods.  He also continued to face backlash from the police.

Dung reported to Project88 that he was physically attacked by police on Christmas Eve 2016. He told us he was blocked by officers, taken from his motorbike, and physically assaulted—whipped with a belt and punched in the chest—in an officer’s car before being left in a pond. He was also forced to go on the run for several months when the crackdown on the Brotherhood for Democracy began in 2016-2017.

Fellow activists explained to Project88 that police ramped up scrutiny of Dung after another administrator of the Patriotic Diary Facebook page, Phan Tat Thanh, was arrested in July 2023. It was around that time that Dung went into hiding for fear of arrest. Project88’s interviews with activists who knew Dung suggest that he was especially worried about an impending arrest in the weeks prior to his death.

On April 22, 2024, while having dinner with two friends—Thach Vu and Nguyen Tien Nam—in Hanoi, Nguyen Van Dung was taken by police officers to Phu Tho (near Hanoi) to be interrogated.[1] He was not presented with detention documents. Thach Vu said four men came to their table as they were finishing dinner and took Dung away.

Nguyen Tien Nam, who goes by the nickname Binh Nhi, and Thach Vu had been close friends with Dung since 2011, when the first wave of anti-China demonstrations began. They considered themselves comrades in the movement and spent a lot of time together. But about 10 years ago, they stopped seeing each other due to work and family obligations. They didn’t meet again until February 2024.

Then, on the morning of April 22, Thach Vu received repeated calls from Nguyen Tien Nam asking to meet for a drink that evening, ostensibly to say goodbye before he moved. Nam repeatedly asked Thach to make sure Dung would come as well. Thach told Project88 that Nam also asked him if he knew where Dung was staying, in case they drank too much and needed to spend the night at Dung’s place. Thach said he didn’t know, because for the past year Dung had been moving around frequently to avoid the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) agents who had been pursuing him, especially after the arrest of Phan Tat Thanh.

When Thach Vu went to the meeting place in Hanoi around 9:30 pm that same day, Nam and Dung were already there with an individual named Van, who Thach and Dung did not know. Later, Thach was told by Van himself that he was an MPS agent. Dung was visibly anxious and tense during the meeting, according to Thach. When Van went to the bathroom, Dung complained angrily to Nam for not telling him that someone from MPS would be there. Nam said it was just a coincidence, and that he and another former activist were there earlier having a beer when Van stopped by on his way home from the gym. He even showed Thach a bill, purportedly from their earlier drinking, and explained that when Van showed up, the other person left. This turned out to be a lie; when Thach contacted that other person a few days later, the man said he wasn’t there and knew nothing about the meeting.

Once Van returned to the table, Thach said conversation turned to “one subject only.” Both Van and Nam tried to persuade Dung to return to Dung’s hometown in Phu Tho and stop his involvement in any kind of activism. Thach said that both men assured Dung that he would not be “arrested, charged or in any legal troubles related to Patriotic Diary.” Thach said he became extremely worried for Dung’s safety, but he could not alert other friends because his phone was in his backpack. As soon as they were ready to leave, a group of non-uniformed MPS officers from Phu Tho entered and told Dung to return to the table. They assured Dung that he’d be returned safely to Phu Tho that night, and then they took him away.

For the next several days, Thach Vu and another friend repeatedly contacted Dung’s family to find out if he had been released from police custody. When they finally heard that he was home, they went to his house the next morning, on April 27.[2]

Dung’s mother met with them and told them that Dung had left the house earlier that day while she was out shopping for food he had requested. According to her, Dung was held by Phu Tho Police from April 22 to April 25. On the 25th, she received a call from them to come pick him up. She said Dung slept all through the day after his release and later told her that he “was not beat up” while in custody.  However, he said that the interrogators told him to stop being involved with the Patriotic Diary.

Dung left home on the morning of April 27 on a motorbike without any money or papers. The bike was later found on Van Lang Bridge, with a pair of sandals believed to be Dung’s beside the motorbike. On May 8, a body washed ashore nearby. Several days later, DNA testing confirmed the body was Dung’s. On the same day that Dung’s body was discovered, Patriotic Diary co-administrator Phan Tat Thanh was sentenced by a Ho Chi Minh City court to eight years in prison on charges of spreading “anti-state propaganda” under Article 117, one year more than what prosecutors had recommended.

Before leaving the house for the last time on April 27, Nguyen Van Dung allegedly left his mother a note which said: “I am sorry, Mother. I am sorry, Son.” Dung leaves behind one child. A close friend of Dung’s reported that Dung allegedly left him with an informal last will and testament to share in case he was to be arrested, but Dung left no specific instructions about what to do in case of his death. Project88 corroborated the existence of the list with a second friend of Dung’s.

As per the list, Dung had allegedly resigned himself to face whatever may happen upon his arrest, asking not to hire a lawyer and not to campaign for his release into exile, as he would not leave Vietnam. He preferred the funds for a lawyer and supplies be used to support other political prisoners with longer sentences and activists still operating on the outside, as well as to pay for his son’s school fees. Despite his imminent risk of arrest in the months prior to his death, Dung often made the arduous 240 km journey to briefly visit his son, picking days when he would be less likely to be followed by police, such as during heavy storms.

Phu Tho authorities have not issued a statement about Dung’s detention, and state media has not mentioned Dung since his disappearance. It remains unknown what transpired between Dung and police during the time when he was taken from Hanoi on April 22 to when he returned home on April 25, nor what the circumstances were when he left home alive for the last time on April 27.

Given his extensive activism career—which resulted in previous violations of his rights by the police—and the documented abuses often meted out by the Vietnamese authorities,[3] it is imperative that the international community call for a public investigation into the circumstances of Nguyen Van Dung’s detention and death. Failure to do so sets a dangerous precedent that Vietnam won’t be held to account when activists allege mistreatment in custody and illegal detention procedures.

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“We need to exchange ideas, treat one another democratically, respect and examine the opinions of others, learn from each other, show others where they can find the information. The exchanging of ideas will help an individual feel more confident, more part of a community, more determined to teach oneself.”

-Nguyen Van Dung in a 2021 interview

 

Clips from the interview with Nguyen Van Dung (Project88, 2021)

Becoming involved in politics.

Duty to speak out.

No hatred, no revenge.

It was a set-up.

Full interview with Nguyen Van Dung.

 

Notes

[1] Project88 corroborated the account of the April 22 meet-up first reported in Saigon Nho with the account’s author, Ly Quang Son, and with Thach Vu directly. Ly, Quang Son (2024, May 08). Làm rõ cái chết đầy uẩn khúc của một người chống Trung Cộng. Saigon Nho. Retrieved June 15, 2024, from https://web.archive.org/web/20240617023122/https://saigonnhonews.com/thoi-su/viet-nam/lam-ro-ve-cai-chet-day-uan-khuc-cua-nguoi-tranh-dau/

[2] The account of the details after Dung’s release on April 25 was also corroborated with Thach Vu directly. Ly, Quang Son (2024, May 08). Làm rõ cái chết đầy uẩn khúc của một người chống Trung Cộng. Saigon Nho. Retrieved June 15, 2024, from https://web.archive.org/web/20240617023122/https://saigonnhonews.com/thoi-su/viet-nam/lam-ro-ve-cai-chet-day-uan-khuc-cua-nguoi-tranh-dau/

[3] Abuses against political and criminal prisoners alike while in custody have been well documented by Project88, UN Special Rapporteurs, and groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as well as foreign governments.

Govi, Snell (2022, May 27). Deadly confessions, the hidden abuse by Vietnam’s police. Southeast Asia Globe. Retrieved June 15, 2024, fromhttps://web.archive.org/web/20240617025530/https://southeastasiaglobe.com/deadly-confessions-the-hidden-abuse-by-vietnams-police/

Project88 (2023, Dec. 19). Human Rights Report Vietnam January 2022-June 2023. Retrieved Retrieved June 15, 2024, from https://web.archive.org/web/20240617025849/https://the88project.org/human-rights-report-january-2022-june-2023/

OHCHR (2024, March 05). Mandates of the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health; the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention; the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression; the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders and the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. AL VNM 2/2024. Retrieved June 15, 2024, fromhttps://web.archive.org/web/20240521233306/https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadPublicCommunicationFile?gId=28817

Amnesty International (2016, July 12). Inside Viet Nam’s secretive and torturous world of ‘prisons within prisons’. Retrieved Retrieved June 15, 2024, from https://web.archive.org/web/20240617030943/https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2016/07/the-secretive-world-of-viet-nam-torturous-prisons/

Human Rights Watch (2014, Sept. 16). Public Insecurity. Deaths in Custody and Police Brutality in Vietnam. Retrieved Retrieved June 15, 2024, from https://web.archive.org/web/20240617031454/https://www.hrw.org/report/2014/09/16/public-insecurity/deaths-custody-and-police-brutality-vietnam

U.S. Department of State (2023). 2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Vietnam. Retrieved Retrieved June 15, 2024, from https://web.archive.org/web/20240617031833/https://www.state.gov/reports/2023-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/vietnam/

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