A new report shows the abuse is systematic.
Updated Jan. 20, 2014 11:08 p.m. ET
Talk about impeccable timing. No sooner has Vietnam taken its place as a new member of the United Nations Human Rights Council this month than a major report documents Hanoi’s widespread use of torture on political and religious prisoners. Cynicism about the U.N. shouldn’t dim outrage over the contrast.
Many details in the report by the Campaign to Abolish Torture in Vietnam are too gruesome to reprint in a family newspaper. Democracy activists, members of unapproved religious groups and other political prisoners describe being confined in small spaces, shackled to their beds, beaten with truncheons or electric prods, deprived of sleep, drugged or sexually humiliated by their captors. Sometimes detainees are beaten to death in custody.
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