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Deputy Police Chief of Cu Se District Tortures Montagnard Christian Deportee From Cambodia
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BACKGROUND: On 20 July 2005 approximately
one hundred Montagnard Degar asylum seekers in Phnom Penh were forcibly
returned to Vietnam by the Cambodian government. The US State Department
and numerous Human Rights Organizations all voiced their disapproval
of this deportation. All of the returnees would arrive at Pleiku, Gialai
Province on July 21, 2005 and on July 23, 2005 the Vietnamese government
sent them back to their respective villages in various districts. To
date we have not yet received information on all of them; however, we
have received information direct from our sources in Vietnam concerning
11 of the deportees who were sent back to Cu Se District, Gialai province.
MONTAGNARD TORTURED: One of these 11 returnees, named “Siu
Nam” (aged 20 years old) from the village of Plei Pah, Ia Ko commune,
Cu Se District, Gia Lai Province was apprehended and tortured
by the Deputy Police Chief of the District. The Deputy Police Chief had
Siu Nam held down and commenced beating him with his fists. He also pulled
Siu Nam 's hair and ears while Siu Nam screamed out loud.
The Deputy Police
Chief continued beating Siu Nam with his fists, and also
struck him across the face 3 times with open palm. Siu
Nam had his nose struck, possibly broken as witnesses described blood
coming from his nose. The Deputy Police Chief then took a long stick and
beat Siu Nam 's hands, his back and stomach numerous times. Witnesses
reported seeing Siu Nam being struck at least twice on his hands and twice
on his back. After the beating the police sent him back to his village.
He was warned not to ever try fleeing to Cambodia again or worse would
happen.
These Degar Montagnard deportees report to us that they fear that
Vietnamese authorities will take revenge against them
later and in particular fear that they will be injected
with some kind of drug that will poison them. The Montagnard Foundation
notes that the Vietnamese Sunday school teacher Le Thi Hong Lien was also
given mind-altering drugs whilst in prison (as reported by Open Doors
in May 2005). Thus this is a very real fear and the Degar people have
long reported of such injections from the many Degar prisoners who have
spent time in Vietnamese security police prisons. Prisoners describe being
injected with some kind of mind altering drug that makes them incoherent
and behave as if insane. Many Degar prisoners also do not live long after
being released from prison, some for a few weeks but so many Montagnard
prisoners die within a year after being released from Vietnamese prisons.
Other Montagnard prisoners have become paralyzed from being severely tortured
in prison. For our people inside the Central Highlands of Vietnam the
situation is critical.
Thus without the presence of the international
community in the Central Highlands the Montagnard Degar
people will never be safe.
THE MONTAGNARD FOUNDATION URGENTLY
CALLS ON:
- The United States Government, the
European Union, the United Nations, and all other
peaceful nations immediately investigate the treatment
of these deportees and insist Vietnam cease all future
retaliation against them and make such - a precondition
to Vietnam gaining entry into the World Trade Organization.
- The United
States Government, the European Union, the United Nations,
and all other peaceful nations insist Vietnam abide by
the 2002 Concluding Observations of the UN Human Rights Committee regarding
the “serious
violations” facing the Degar Montagnard peoples (UN doc: CCPR/C/SR.2031)
and allow human rights monitors ongoing access to the
central highlands as a precondition to Vietnam gaining
entry into the World Trade Organization.
- The United States Government,
the European Union, the United Nations and all other
peaceful nations to insist that Cambodia and the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) immediately desist from
any more attempts to deport Montagnard asylum seekers until such adequate
international monitoring is in place inside Vietnam's central highlands.
