FOREIGN SCRIBES FIND CROCODILES, ‘LOLITA’ IN VIETNAMESE PRISON

Punishing forced labour, a litany of torture accusations, zero contact with family outside the country: Such preconceptions are the norm for Vietnam's prisons, yet actually setting foot inside one reveals a bizarre new reality, Chris Humphrey wrote for Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa).

On a recent visit to Thu Duc Prison, around three hours outside Ho Chi Minh City, a delegation of foreign reporters was allowed to enter inside the nation's secretive prison system and speak directly to inmates. The trip essentially took place due to the Vietnam-EU free trade agreement that Vietnam's National Assembly ratified in June 2020. As part of the negotiations, the legislative body also ratified International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 105 – an accord that, on paper, obliges the country to end all forms of forced labor, including in prisons.

Lt. Gen. Ho Thanh Dinh, a two-star general and director of Vietnam's national prison system, led a tour of the expansive grounds where distant rubber plantations shift in the breeze and inmates construct stately buildings – one stands beside a lake overlooked by a replica of Singapore's famous Merlion. What was once a former re-education camp for southern Vietnamese now houses over 6,000 inmates, of whom more than 150 are foreigners. It doesn't take long, however, to understand why such access is rare. As the group explored the inner prison, two Nigerian inmates rushed towards reporters, desperate to talk. "We are begging them to give us a chance to speak to our relatives," said Nicholas Star, who was jailed for drug-related crimes. "Nobody in my family knows where I am." Shortly after, police ushered away visiting journalists.

Officials later confirmed that only family based in-country can be contacted via a Vietnamese phone number. In the area for foreigners, 13 prisoners sleep together in one cell, while as many as 40 cohabit in cells for Vietnamese. Dinh said the two groups of inmates are treated equally. Vietnamese prisoners were largely kept out of sight during the tour. Malaysian inmate Hilton Gomez, 52, who runs a landscaping team, said: "They treat us better than the Vietnamese. Because we are foreigners, we have more privileges. We have evening sports like ping-pong." Yet, he added that they would go into solitary confinement for up to 10 days, or lose a reduction in sentence, if they misbehave. Inmates can read books in a prison library on Sundays or during breaks. Above the library, a message inscribed on the walls extols the virtues of education. Inside, copies of classics by Oscar Wilde, William Faulkner and Bill Bryson rest alongside Men's Health magazine and a copy of Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita," which details a literature professor's relationship with a 12-year-old girl. The prison's most infamous former inmate is British pop star and convicted pedophile Gary Glitter.

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