Democratic Voice of Vietnam

“As long as I breathe, I will keep fighting.”

Ho Thi Bich Khuong

former victim of labor trafficking, human rights advocate,

prisoner of conscience, recipient of the Hellman-Hammett Award

Ho Thi Bich Khuong, born in 1967 in Nam Anh, Nam Dan, Nghe An Province, is a human rights advocate victimized by Vietnam’s government. She was arrested in 2011 and is currently in detention for the third time, following two previous detentions in 2005 and 2007.  This time the government sentenced her to 5 years of imprisonment, followed by 3 years of probation and surveillance.

Ho Thi Bich Khuong’s property had been illegally seized by the government. Subsequently she was exported to South Korea as a victim of labor trafficking. In South Korea, she took the initiative to defend her fellow labor trafficking victims against their employer’s violation of their rights and contractual agreements. Upon repatriation to Vietnam, she started advocating on behalf of those whose property had been seized by Vietnam’s government, and joined the advocacy group Block 8406 to help bring freedom and democracy to the Vietnamese people.

While growing up in Nghe An, Ho Thi Bich Khuong showed her love for justice at an early age. When she was 18, she was bold enough to denounce various acts of intimidation, corruption and robbery by people in positions of power.

In 1989 the local government wrecked her home and store, and seized her land. She had to make a living by selling small items at a stall and through odd jobs such as photography, sewing and teaching others how to make clothes. She had a fairly large number of students and associates in her sewing business. However, she continued to denounce local government officials when they violated the law and engaged in dishonest activities for personal gains.

In 1994-1995, Ho Thi Bich Khuong joined the government’s labor export program to work in South Korea after the government had shut down all her business activities at home. Soon after her arrival in South Korea, she and other workers found out that they had been tricked as their employer paid them way below what their contracts stipulated. When she demanded their South Korean employer and the representative of the Vietnamese labor exports company to abide by their contract, these labor traffickers ordered their thugs to beat up Khuong. Subsequently they repatriated her.

Back in Vietnam, she went to the labor exports company LOD and the Transport Ministry to demand restitution. Nothing came out of it.

From 1996 on, she began to make demands on her local and central governments for the restitution of her confiscated property.

Beginning in 1999, she became a vocal advocate who assisted other victims of illegal property confiscation. Her husband was mysteriously murdered during one of his trips to Ha Noi for the purpose of demanding restitution. The murderers dumped his body in a river and later buried him without notifying her.

Her activities on behalf of her own family and other victims landed her in prison with a six-month sentence in Hoa Lo Prison, Ha Noi (May 11 to November 11, 2005) for “Disrupting public order”.

Upon being released, she courageously traveled all over Vietnam to collect evidence from other victims of property expropriation and help them reclaim their property. She suffered a number of suspicious collisions involving motorcycles or cars driven by unidentified persons, causing her substantial injuries. The government imprisoned her again from May 26, 2007 until April 26, 2009 for “Abuse of the democratic rights granted to a citizen in working against the state’s interests and the interests of social/citizens’ organizations”.

Upon her release, Ho Thi Bich Khuong continued her activism and disseminating articles on behalf of victims whose property was expropriated by the government, as well as advocating for freedom and democracy. In spite of her family’s suffering reprisals by the Communist government, she persevered in her struggle for social justice, consistent with her familiar statement: “As long as I breathe, I will keep fighting”. During this period, she wrote her memoirs, “My Struggle for Justice and Democracy”, in which she recorded her imprisonments and human rights violations by public security agents. From July 2009 on, her book has been publicized through various media.  Ho Thi Bich Khuong collaborates with several key members of Block 8406, such as Catholic Priest Nguyen Van Ly, Catholic Priest Phan Van Loi (Hue), Protestant Pastor Nguyen Hong Quang (Saigon), and Protestant Pastor Nguyen Trung Ton (Thanh Hoa). During one of her visits to a collaborator, public security agents in Phu Nhuan, Saigon, arrested and beat her up severely in the night of June 14, 2010.

In late 2010, following the Internet distribution of the documentary film “Tragedy of Losing Our Country” by Nguyen Ngoc Huy and his associates, she and Pastor Ton downloaded and made hundreds of DVDs for others. Both her and Pastor Ton were arrested by the police. On November 29, 2011, the government sentenced her to 5 years of imprisonment, followed by 3 years of probation and surveillance for “Propaganda against state socialism”

The agencies that arrested her and the courts that sentenced her had disregarded Vietnamese and international laws throughout their persecution campaign against her. On November 29, 2011, Atty. Ha Huy Son, her defense counsel, issued a statement concerning her sentencing: “The prosecution did not follow the statute …”.

International human rights organizations expressed their concerns about Vietnam’s disregard for the rights of this courageous woman and other prisoners of conscience. Recently, Human Rights Watch appealed to Vietnam to follow Burma’s example and release its own political prisoners, including Ho Thi Bich Khuong.

In 2011, Human Rights Watch awarded Ho Thi Bich Khuong its prestigious Hellman-Hammett Award.

Her only child, a boy who completed 9th grade, had to quit school because his relatives are too poor to afford to send him to school.

In May 2012, she confided to a visitor, her sister Ho Thi Lan, that prison guards tortured her badly and her health has declined precipitously. In early June 2012, prison staff punished her by forbidding her to meet with any visitor.