Friday, June 17, 2005

SANE PASTOR HELD CAPTIVE IN MENTAL HOSPITAL IN VIETNAM

By Jeremy Reynalds
Special Correspondent for ASSIST News Service

VIETNAM (ANS) -- Days before the Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai travels to North America on a diplomatic mission, news has emerged of a Protestant pastor being held captive in a mental hospital in Vietnam, despite being completely sane.

According to a news release from Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), the story began when Rev. Than Van Truong of the Baptist General Conference house church organization, wrote some religious articles and sent a number of Bibles as gifts to Vietnam’s top officials. He was arrested for “crimes against the state,” and imprisoned without trial in May 2003.

After his release, Truong was re-arrested for trying to leave his residence in the south to visit his elderly, sick mother in the far north of Vietnam. CSW reported that officials had not responded to his several requests for permission to visit his mother, which is still required in the communist-run Vietnam.

In Sept. 2004, CSW reported, the public prosecutor of Dong Nai Province diagnosed Truong as “mentally ill and delusional,” and he was committed to the Bien Hoa Mental Hospital in Dong Nai Province. Injected with drugs, he was initially lethargic, but after a time his medication was reduced and he improved.

In March 2005, Truong began writing petitions about his case and asking for intervention. Truong’s case became well known after visitors to Mennonite prisoner-of-conscience Ms. Le Thi Hong Lien, also committed to the mental hospital, helped bring his situation to light.

Truong’s case was initially presented to the European Union, to Canada and the United States, after which some countries engaged in quiet diplomacy on his behalf. A lawyer also agreed to help him. According to CSW, the lawyer obtained an admission from authorities that the criminal investigation had found nothing negative on Truong was closed. He also got an agreement from the hospital to stop giving the pastor unidentified psychotic medications.

The lawyer asked the hospital to give Truong an independent medical examination, and then release him. After an American diplomat tried to visit Truong on May 27, CSW reported, hospital authorities summoned Truong to a “medical examination” the following week.

The “examination,” CSW reported, was an interview with about eight people, some of whom were doctors. They reportedly questioned Truong mostly about his religious beliefs and his credentials as a pastor, which his interviewers refused to acknowledge. The director of the hospital, Dr. Tho, led the interview.

During an earlier interview, CSW reported, Tho had confirmed twice to Truong that he was in the mental hospital because he had “committed a crime (and) broken the law,” even though the public prosecutor of Dong Nai had confirmed that the investigation against him had found nothing and was closed.

According to Truong, Tho acted more like a law enforcement officer than a doctor.

CSW commented, “In what was apparently sometimes a bizarre argument between several Marxists and a lone Christian that had nothing to do with mental health, the doctors’ perspectives dominated the discussion. They decided his firm Christians beliefs and his evangelistic attitude toward them qualified him as being delusional.”

During the months prior to this, CSW reported, one doctor at the mental hospital confirmed to Mrs. Truong on a number of occasions that her husband was not suffering from mental problems.

This same doctor reportedly also informed Truong that on three occasions he had recommended a new medical examination, which would have led to his being freed, but hospital authorities had declined because his case involved “religion and politics.”

Truong last saw his regular physician on June 10 and fears something may have happened to him, CSW reported. After three weeks of not being given drugs, he was approached that night by another medic and given pills. When he declined to take them, the medic warned him that he would be injected in the morning if he did not comply. Truong and his wife now fear for his safety.

A CSW source on Vietnam remarked, “Even though authorities themselves have confirmed that Pastor Truong is neither criminal nor crazy, they still incarcerate him in a mental hospital. It sounds like the Soviet Union 50 years ago.”

Tina Lambert, Advocacy Director of CSW, said in a news release, “The release of this story should embarrass the Vietnamese Prime Minister, who is about to go to the U.S. to convince America that all is well in Vietnam. At the same time, a delegation from Dong Nai Province, the location of the Bien Hoa Mental Hospital, is visiting America on a trade mission. It is time the West confronts the reality of Vietnam’s flagrant disregard for the religious freedom of her people.”