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Free Speech Issues Still Problematic For Vietnam
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"I told him that it was impossible to do that because the government would arrest him and give him a lot of trouble," recalled Chinh, who lives in a small house in the heart of town. "But he kept coming to visit me, and tried to persuade me to talk to my friends about the fund to get their support."
These dissident colleagues agreed that the fund was risky, and Son dropped the idea, Hoang said.
Then one day Son came to Chinh with a copy of the essay he had translated. He told Chinh he had given the U.S. ambassador, then Raymond Burghardt, the first copy as a gift. The second went to the general secretary of the Communist Party. The third went to Chinh.
Son also showed the translation to his wife, an administrative assistant for a nongovernmental organization. She liked the piece. Though she realized that the topic was "sensitive," she said, "at that time, I didn't know that it would be dangerous to my husband and my family. I think people have a right to do personal research. I don't understand why he had to be arrested."
Son also translated and sent to friends and officials an essay he wrote in French titled "Encouraging Signs of Democracy." Neither essay advocated violence, Vu Thuy Ha said. "He was trying to propose steps to improve democracy in Vietnam," she said.
On March 25, 2002, soon after Son sent the second essay, a special police unit came to their house, Ha said. The police seized Son's computer and personal papers and took him for questioning. Son published an open letter on the Internet protesting the search and confiscation of his belongings.
The next day, he visited Chinh. "I warned him, 'You're going to be arrested soon,' " Chinh recalled. "I advised him to try to tell the authorities that what he did was not illegal."
On March 27, the police took Son, without an arrest warrant. When Ha came home that evening, she found books, dishes and clothes knocked to the floor.
Ha and her sons now live with her parents. During a visit, the boys, 6 and 8, scampered about, playing tunes on an electronic keyboard and jumping on a bed.
The younger boy, Pham Vu Duy Tan, who has his father's bright eyes, said he missed his father. The older boy, Pham Vu Anh Quan, wanted to know why his father could not have a phone in prison. They asked when, exactly, he would come home.
Their father's release date, Ha told them, is March 27, 2007.
