Prisoner of conscience Nguyen Nhu Phuong told his family that he coughed up blood and had suffered pain after being assaulted by the correctional officers of the Ba Ria - Vung Tau Provincial Police Detention Camp in Long Dien District, according to Phuong’s mother, Nguyen Thi Thu Ha. In 2022, two Vietnamese courts sentenced Phuong to a sentence of six years and three months on combined charges of “distributing anti-state propaganda” and “storing and using narcotics.”

Ha told RFA that the assaults began on Nov. 20, 2023, after she visited the detention camp and gave her son two shirts. However, Phuong said he did not receive them even though the shirts were shown in the gift receipt record. After that, he went to meet the correctional officers to ask them about these items, but the officer reportedly cursed and beat him.

Phuong told Ha that a correctional officer named Nhat used a glass bottle to hit him in the face, and then several other officers rushed in to beat him and lock him in an isolated room. Ha added that her son was also punished by not being allowed family visits in December 2023. When she called Nhat to question the beating of her son, the officer allegedly admitted that the beating happened, but it was because Phuong "spoke rudely" to him and asked her to forgive the beating.

Ha told RFA that on Jan. 8, she went directly to the Ba Ria - Vung Tau Provincial Police Detention Camp to inquire about the incident. A detention supervisor named Luan apologized to her and asked her not to make a big deal of this incident. The officer named Nhat and the provincial detention camp did not immediately respond to RFA reporters' request to verify the incident.