Epoch Times Staff
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/world/seeking-to-help-the-chinese-people-vietnam-broadcasters-face-trial-136906.html
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| In a related event, protesters at the Vietnamese consulate in San Francisco on Oct. 3 advocate for freedom for broadcasters Vu Duc Trung and Le Van Thanh. (Jan Jekielek/The Epoch Times) |
Vu Duc Trung and his brother-in-law Le Van Thanh were arrested on June 11, 2010 for the administrative offense of using broadcasting devices without a permit and the criminal charge of “transmitting information illegally into the telecommunications network.” They have sat in jail in Hanoi ever since.
The charges are a pretext. Vietnam’s prosecution of the two is in fact a matter of state, a kowtow to Vietnam’s giant northern neighbor, with whom Vietnam has disputes over territory on their shared border and in the South China Sea, and over navigation, fishing, and mineral rights, while relying on China for hundreds of millions of dollars in investments each year.
The official indictment, a copy of which was obtained by The Epoch Times, makes the political dimension of the prosecution clear. The indictment cites a May 30, 2010 memo from the Chinese Embassy to the Vietnam Ministry of Public Security. The memo stated that the People’s Republic of China had discovered radio broadcasts with “Sound of Hope” content going into China from Vietnam and suggested a “joint effort” to halt Falun Gong activity in Vietnam.
The long-postponed trial is a proxy for a much larger conflict. Since July 1999 the Chinese Communist Party has sought to “eradicate” the spiritual practice of Falun Gong, and the adherents of Falun Gong have sought in an act of moral jiu jitsu to turn the campaign against them back against the CCP. By educating the people of China about the lies and violence used against Falun Gong, practitioners seek to dissolve the legitimacy of the CCP and its ability to persecute the practice.
Trung, 31, the founder of a successful web-hosting company in Hanoi, and Thanh, 36, a cab driver, joined together to lend their hands to this peaceful campaign of resistance.
Falun Gong
Trung was the leader of the effort. Although of a serious turn of mind, in pictures there is always something a little whimsical about Trung’s smile, as though there is a joke that only he knows. Vietnamese Falun Gong practitioners say he speaks very persuasively and is a natural leader.
Trung discovered Falun Gong in 2007 by browsing the web. After reading the practice’s foundational book, Zhuan Falun, he began following its teachings and practicing Falun Gong’s meditative exercises.
In May 2009 Trung spoke at a Falun Gong conference held in Hanoi about how Falun Gong had changed him. In winter time he was accustomed to having chronic bronchitis for which he took high doses of antibiotics. In a case similar to the experiences of thousands of other practitioners, his annual bronchitis cleared up without medication.
Even though he had a wife and young children, he had earlier spent long hours at his computer playing video games, ignoring his family. He would sometimes be irritable and speak abusively. After he began practicing Falun Gong, his wife told him and his relatives that he changed “180 degrees.” Trung said that because of Falun Gong, he looked inside to improve himself, sought to remove selfishness, and to become a good person in society.
Trung introduced his brother-in-law Thanh to Falun Gong, who also experienced dramatic changes. Thanh had been in and out of prison due to narcotic use. After he began practicing Falun Gong, he gave up drugs. Practitioners in Vietnam describe him as compassionate, gentle, and shy.
Delighted in the changes in the two men, their families supported them in their practice of Falun Gong.
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| Vu Duc Trung (Courtesy Vu Duc Trung) |
Vinh Vo, a software engineer who lives in San Jose, California, is mentioned in the indictment as one of those responsible for the broadcasts into China.
“When Trung would sit at his computer and read in Clearwisdom [a Falun Gong website] of the torture and abuse suffered by practitioners in China,” Vo said, “tears would run down his face.”
Trung was particularly shocked by the evidence of forced organ harvesting taking place in China and felt he had to do something.
In early 2009 the Sound of Hope (SOH) affiliate Radio Erabaru in Indonesia was in the news because of the Chinese regime’s efforts to shut it down. The example of Radio Erabaru, which broadcast to Chinese-speakers in nearby Singapore, inspired Trung with the idea of broadcasting directly to China.
“He wanted to help the people of China understand that misleading news can harm them,” Vo said. “He wanted to let them know about the persecution of Falun Gong and help relieve the pressure on his fellow practitioners.”
SOH radio network provided the content that Trung wanted—its programs offer an uncensored take on events in China, covering human rights abuses, corruption, protests, and the persecution of Falun Gong. Moreover, the content was free for anyone to download.
Trung had gotten to know Vo online, and Vo had formerly worked for the Viet-language Sound of Hope broadcast. Trung invited Vo to come to Vietnam.
Vo attended the May 2009 conference in Hanoi and then spent two weeks at Trung’s father-in-law’s farm 12 miles northwest of Hanoi helping Trung set up a radio station.
Broadcasting
The work did not go smoothly at first. They set up a lightning rod, and no sooner did they do so than a stroke of lightning hit the transformer beside the rod, frying all of the electronic circuits inside the house.
They persevered and Trung learned how to operate the equipment. He set it up so that he could control the programming from his laptop. Sitting in his office in Hanoi he could load and broadcast programs.
Later, Trung and Thanh installed two sets of broadcasting equipment in Thanh’s home, where Thanh could turn them off in case of storms.
Vietnam sits on a highland, relative to China, which is an advantage for shortwave broadcasts. The signal of their new station could reach all the way to Beijing, 1,400 miles north.
Shortwave, when compared to AM, FM, TV, satellite radio, and the Internet, seems to be an obsolete technology. But in China’s rural areas it is anything but.
Poor farmers don’t have Internet access and can’t afford a TV, much less a satellite dish. But they often can afford a shortwave radio, which has the added advantage of being portable—they can take it with them as they do their daily chores.
The Chinese regime jealously guards its stranglehold on information. SOH, which has affiliates at different points of the compass surrounding China, has been told by experts that the expense and effort to jam SOH’s broadcasts from reaching China is unprecedented.
A shortwave signal cannot be blocked, but someone seeking to jam it can broadcast noise over it, drowning out the original broadcast.
Trung’s software allowed him to identify whether his signal was being jammed and he could with a touch of button switch frequencies. But he and Thanh weren’t really sure anyone in China was listening.
Feedback
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| Vu Duc Trung (Courtesy Vu Duc Trung) |
Before the week was out, mail began to arrive at a SOH affiliate in Taiwan. Listeners wanted to know what had happened to Trung and Thanh’s broadcast. The broadcasters then turned the power back on.
Allen Zeng, the spokesperson for SOH, provided examples of typical feedback that arrives daily from mainland China.
One village wrote a collective letter to say that they were encouraged by SOH reporting on their case, and the entire village now gathers together to listen to SOH broadcasts.
A listener wrote that SOH “is the sound of true hope for all living beings within the iron walls of Mainland China.”
Another wrote, “Restoring knowledge, truth, mental health, human dignity and morality are the issues that every single person in mainland China needs to face, and listening to your programs is one of the effective ways to resolve these problems.”
Arrest and Trial
Trung and Thanh treated their project as confidential. Vo, a friend in Vietnam, and two individuals in Taiwan knew about the project. Their families knew of the equipment, but didn’t know the details.
The two broadcasters never expected to be arrested. Vo had worked with them to research international and Vietnamese laws. “There is no law that says it is illegal to broadcast across the border,” Vo said. “We researched for several months to make sure there were no loopholes we didn’t know about.”
But late in the afternoon of June 11, 2010 police showed up at Trung’s office, handcuffed him in front of his staff, and led him away, without saying a word as to where they were taking him, causing his family to panic. Thanh was picked up at his home. They have remained in jail ever since.
Freedom House and Reporters Without Borders have condemned the prosecution of Trung and Thanh, the U.S. Embassy has monitored the case, and various international media outlets have reported on it.
Vietnam has shied away from the world’s attention, first scheduling the trial for April 8, then for Oct. 6., before settling on this Thursday.
Trung’s lawyer, Tran Dinh Trien, has seen Trung three or four times during his long incarceration. Trien reports that Trung has been healthy and in good spirits. Trung believes in what he and Thanh were doing, believes that the broadcasts were good for the Chinese people.
Additional reporting by Thanh Le.
