Dr. Pham Hong Son, a 38-year old physician and businessman, was arrested on March 27, 2002, after translating an article entitled “What is Democracy?” that he had downloaded from the U.S. Embassy in Vietnam's website and sending it to friends and senior party officials. After a fifteen-month pre-trial detention period in a Hanoi detention center, Dr. Son was tried on June 18, 2003. He was charged with “spying” and sentenced to 13 years in prison followed by three years of house arrest. Upon appeal, Vietnam's Supreme Court reduced Dr. Son's sentence to five years in prison and three years of house arrest.  Dr. Son remains in poor health, coughing up blood, and suffers from an untreated inguinal hernia.

In March 2006, Freedom Now was retained by a member of Dr. Son's family to represent him.  The following month, on April 6, 2006, the U.S. House of Representatives adopted H.Con.Res. 320, by then co-sponsored by 35 Members of Congress on a vote of 425-1.  The resolution, championed by House International Relations Subcommitee on Africa, Global Human Rights, and International Operations Chairman Christopher H. Smith (R-NJ), condemned Dr. Son's ongoing detention and urged his immediate release from prison.

 

On August 2, 2006, Freedom Now volunteer attorneys Yoonah Lee and Daniel Silverberg filed a Petition to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention calling for Dr. Son's release and describing the Government of Vietnam's violations of their own and international law in the case.

Over the course of his imprisonment Dr. Son's case has been taken up by numerous human rights groups including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Physicians for Human Rights, Reporters Without Borders, International Chinese PEN Center, and The Committee to Protect Journalists, among others.

On August 30, 2006, the Government of Vietnam released Dr. Pham Hong Son.  Freedom Now is continuing to work on the case to ensure that he release is unconditional.

top of page