BRISBANE: Religious leaders, doctors, teachers, journalists and political activists were still in Vietnam jails for political reasons, a former critic of the communist government said yesterday.
United States-based English professor and writer Doan Viet Hoat, told the Amnesty International annual general meeting about 200 men and women, including more than 10 religious leaders, remained political prisoners in Vietnam.
He said they were being forced to work in labour camps for eight hours a day with hardened criminals.
'They force all prisoners out of the camps to work in the fields or in the mountains to do all kinds of hard, manual labour work,' Professor Hoat told the 45 Amnesty delegates.
Professor Hoat was a prisoner of conscience in Vietnam for 16 years until last September.
Former Labor prime minister Paul Keating and foreign affairs minister Gareth Evans were among an international group pushing for his release in 1998 after he spent 12 years in jail, unknown to human rights activists. Yesterday, he paid tribute to Australia's efforts, but urged Amnesty to continue to fight for the release of his colleagues.
'Even if they are released, they are under house arrest,' he said. 'Their house are turning into their own prison.'
'This is a new way to oppress freedom of expression.'
New Press laws would be introduced in Vietnam within a month to tighten already strict controls on the Press, and prevent investigations of government corruption, he said.
'This must be a concern of all people who want to improve the human rights situation of all countries,' he said. Professor Hoat was among other so-called dissidents 'rounded up' in 1976 for their part in the Freedom Forum - which has been fighting against the communist leadership for freedom, democracy and a multi-party system.
He was accused of spying for the United States Central Intelligence Agency and was jailed until 1988 and then again in 1990 for producing an underground pro-democracy newsletter.
During his imprisonment, Professor Hoat said he developed life-threatening high blood pressure and had spent eight years in a room with 40 other prisoners.
In the last two years he said they were allowed to walk outside the room for 15 minutes twice a week. He had spent 15 days in a darkened cell handcuffed and with one leg chained to an iron bar."