BY MIKE IVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Cu Huy Ha Vu’s books come with pages torn out by prison guards. Only some of his letters reach home. He is not allowed to access evidence from his trial or to see his wife alone.
This treatment, described by Vu’s wife, has driven the Vietnamese legal scholar to a hunger strike that is now in its fourth week. Nguyen Thi Duong Ha says her husband told her Saturday that he hasn’t eaten since May 27, even though she brings him orange juice and chicken stock, and that he won’t until the prison officially replies to his complaints.
Now she worries the hunger strike may exacerbate Vu’s longstanding heart problems and provoke a stroke.
“I live in fear,” she said. “I can’t fall asleep because I’m afraid there may be a phone call with bad news.”
Vu, the son of revolutionary poet Cu Huy Can, is among the many government critics who have been imprisoned as the Communist government, beset by economic troubles and complaints about corruption and inequality, cracks down on dissent. His hunger strike has drawn attention to the conditions dissidents face in prison and to his own 2011 conviction on charges that included conducting propaganda against the state, calling for multiparty government and demanding the abolishment of the party’s leadership.
