By Tuong An and An Nguyen, RFA
Three months after her release from prison, Vietnamese authorities have prevented prominent labor activist Do Thi Minh Hanh from leaving the country to visit her ailing mother in Austria.
Do Thi Minh Hanh poses with her father after her release from prison, June 27, 2014. Photo courtesy of Do Thi Minh Hanh
On Wednesday, security officials confiscated Hanh’s passport and prevented her from leaving the Hanoi airport to go to Austria, where her mother is undergoing medical treatment for an illness.
“The immigration authorities are keeping me here [and] not letting me out,” Hanh told RFA’s Vietnamese Service by telephone in a brief interview. “They are not letting me leave Vietnam.”
She said the order to stop her from leaving the country came from police in her home province of Lam Dong in the Central Highlands.
Hanh had received a 46-day visa from the Austrian embassy “for humanitarian reasons” to visit her ill mother, sources said.
“The Lam Dong Province police requested that the immigration department not let me leave Vietnam,” she said, adding that no reason was given for the action.
Hanh’s mother, Tran Thi Ngoc Minh, was hospitalized on July 25, about a month after Hanh was released after serving four years of a seven-year sentence for leafleting in support of footwear workers striking for better working conditions and higher wages.
Minh has had three surgeries and been confined to an Austrian hospital for nearly a month. Although she has been released, she is continuing to undergo treatment due to further health complications.
Former political prisoner Truong Minh Duc, who accompanied Hanh to the airport, told RFA that after authorities detained her at the airport, they initially allowed Hanh to make phone calls, but later transferred her to an interrogation room where he lost contact with her.
“This is her right to travel with a legal visa, but the government of Vietnam always does this, creating difficulties for domestic activists,” he said. “This is not the first time.”
Duc said that Hanh had met with representatives from the Norwegian, German, Austrian, and U.S. embassies in Hanoi to inform them about her plans to visit her mother.
Read the full story HERE.
