On Friday two Vietnamese men go on trial in Hanoi because the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) objected to short wave radio broadcasts they were beaming into China. This trial is the latest instance of a campaign to suppress Falun Gong in Vietnam—a campaign that Vietnamese government documents make clear the CCP has inspired.
The men, both of whom practice Falun Gong, used their broadcasts to inform the Chinese people of the twelve-year-long persecution of the spiritual practice.
The Epoch Times obtained a copy of the indictment against them. It makes clear that the Vietnamese government arrested the men in response to pressure from Beijing, applied through a May 30, 2010, diplomatic memo sent by the Chinese Embassy to the Vietnam Ministry of Public Security.
“The memo stated that the Police Department in China discovered radio signals coming from the Vietnamese territory containing the same content about Falun Gong as heard on the ‘Sound of Hope’ radio station,” the indictment read. “It was recommended that all illegal activities of Falun Gong individuals in the Vietnam territory must be charged and stopped.”
Vũ Đức Trung is the CEO of a high-tech company headquartered in Hanoi and a Falun Gong practitioner. According to the indictment, in April 2009 Trung installed short wave radios in the home of his brother-in-law, Le Van Thanh, and his father-in-law, Le Van Manh. The short-wave radios were then used to broadcast into China.
The Sound of Hope radio station mentioned in the indictment is a media partner of The Epoch Times. Since its inception in 2003 it has undercut the Communist Party’s efforts to control information in China, using shortwave broadcasts to deliver news directly to the Chinese people about China’s politics, economy, culture, and environment.
According to Allen Zeng, spokesperson for Sound of Hope, anyone may download Sound of Hope’s programs, as Trung and Thanh did.
Through interviews with Vietnamese Falun Gong practitioners and documentary evidence, The Epoch Times has pieced together a chronology of events leading up to and succeeding the arrest.
On June 10, 2010, Trung’s broadcasting equipment was confiscated.
Also on June 10 officers from the Bureau of Radio Frequency Management recorded a memo of “administrative offense” against Mr Thanh for using broadcasting devices without a permit, which violates Item 64, Article 1 of the Postal and Telecommunications Law.
On June 11, Trung, his brother-in-law, who is also a Falun Gong practitioner, and his father-in-law were arrested.
On June 19, the stakes were raised as, in addition to this administrative action, criminal charges were filed under Vietnam’s Article 226, which prohibits “transmitting information illegally onto the telecommunications network.”
The three men were detained without bail. Their families were told they could not visit, because the charges were said to be political in nature.
On Sept. 1 the father-in-law, Mr. Manh, was released from custody. Mr. Trung and Mr. Thanh remain in prison.
In early 2011, the People’s Police magazine published an article claiming that Trung’s short wave broadcasts had interfered with air traffic control and damaged Vietnam’s diplomatic relations.
Next: Diplomatic Relations
Diplomatic Relations
The police who raided the homes of Trung and Thanh not only took away broadcasting equipment and computers, they also confiscated books and other materials related to Falun Gong.
Falun Gong is a spiritual discipline that involves practicing five meditative exercises and following moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. After first being taught in 1992 in China it rapidly became very popular. An issue of the U.S. News and World Report from February 1999 cited Chinese officials in claiming that Falun Gong had 100 million adherents.
The popularity of Falun Gong frightened the then-paramount leader, Jiang Zemin, who in July 1999 ordered that the practice be “eradicated.” The Falun Dafa Information Center estimates that tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have died from torture and abuse and hundreds of thousands are held in China’s labor camps or prisons.
In its foreign relations, the CCP’s diplomats make clear that criticism of its policy toward Falun Gong is unacceptable. Where the regime has influence, it attempts to suppress the practice.
Vietnam has bowed to the CCP’s influence. While Falun Gong is officially legal in Vietnam, the state has put systematic pressure on Falun Gong practitioners, as witnessed by documents obtained by The Epoch Times.
The memo says in part, “Spreading Falun Gong in Vietnam and spreading the information about China’s persecution of practitioners in China directly affects the diplomatic relations between Vietnam and China…
“The government and the ministry of investigation and security gives direct orders to stop the practice of Falun Gong in the country to avoid problems with China. It orders officials they must deal with the situation when they detect it.”
A memo from Provincial Department of Education and Training in Bến Tre to its Offices of Education and Training issued on March 30, 2011 corroborates the 2009 memo’s picture of systematic state suppression. The 2011 memo states that it was issued in compliance with an official order dated March 29, 2011 from the Official People’s Committee in Bến Tre to halt all dispersal of Falun Gong materials.
Vietnamese practitioners date the attempt to suppress Falun Gong to 2006. In Hanoi police came to a park where practitioners were doing the Falun Gong exercises and arrested the practitioners. Later the police went to their homes, confiscated materials relating to Falun Gong and pressured families into trying to get practitioners to give up Falun Gong.
Since then, the harassment has gradually intensified, with incidents reported throughout Vietnam. In some cases, practitioners have been roughed up by police.
Two weeks ago 15 police detained 11 Falun Gong practitioners in Bien Hoa. The police confiscated all their Falun Gong materials and required practitioners to sign documents promising not to practice Falun Gong and not to distribute fliers about the persecution.
Extra-legal Grounds
Mr. Trung and Mr. Thanh are represented by the lawyer Tran Dinh Trien. Mr. Trien believes the real reason for his clients’ arrest involves Vietnam’s attempts to appease the CCP.
In a Radio Free Asia broadcast translated from Vietnamese by The Epoch Times, Mr. Trien points to a document issued by the Ministry of Public Security around the same time as the decision by the state to prosecute his clients. The document emphasized that propagating Falun Gong affected diplomatic relations between Vietnam and China.
Trien believes the criminal case against his clients is without merit.
In a letter to the Ministry of Public Security and the People’s Supreme Procurator, Mr. Trien explained how the criminal charge brought against his clients does not actually apply to them: Article 226 originally did not apply to radio broadcasts. It was revised to include radio broadcasts, with the revised law effective January 1, 2010. But, Trien argues, since his clients had begun radio broadcasts in 2009, the revised law is not binding in their case.
At most, he says, his clients should be charged with an administrative offence of broadcasting without a license, the punishment for which would be the confiscation of their equipment and a fine.
As for the claim that the broadcasts interfered with air traffic control, Falun Gong practitioners in Vietnam say that the broadcasts were made on international short wave frequencies, and such interference is not possible.
Trien points to the aggressive actions of China toward Vietnam—occupying Vietnamese islands and exploring for Vietnam’s mineral resources on Vietnam’s continental shelf—as reasons why the Vietnamese state has felt it needed to please the CCP by suppressing Falun Gong and, in particular, arresting his clients.
With reporting by Thanh Le.
