Music teacher Dang Dang Phuoc was able to call home for the first time in two months. His wife, Le Thi Ha, said that in the June 12 call, her husband gave more details about why he was shackled for 10 days after her visit on May 9. Before she left the visiting room that day, he gave her a small piece of paper containing the phone number of an inmate who’d just been transferred to Xuan Phuoc Prison, to be passed to his family so they’d know where he was. In Vietnam, families rarely are notified when a prisoner is transferred to a new prison facility. Immediately afterwards, Phuoc was taken to the office and ordered to write a “confession letter”; in it, he said he knew his action was against prison rules but thought it was only a minor infraction. The warden allegedly took a vote from all of Phuoc’s cellmates (about 26 people), and everyone agreed that his action only warranted a minor disciplinary response. Nevertheless, Phuoc was still put in shackles and kept in isolation. During those 10 days, Phuoc refused to eat to protest the unfair treatment and lost 10 kg., according to his wife. And although just one leg was shackled, after five days, his ankle became severely swollen and required medical attention. After a visit by the prison medical staff, the shackle was removed and transferred to his other leg for the remaining five days.

In a bit of good news, Ha told her husband that she was able to go to Saigon to attend their son’s graduation ceremony. However, not long after she returned to Buon Me Thuot in the Central Highlands, Ha received a summons from Phu Yen provincial police (200Km away) to appear “in person” on June 7 to resolve the issues she cited in the letter she wrote to them on June 2, asking why her husband had been disciplined. Ha said it seemed absurd that they could not simply respond to her by a letter like they’d done many times before instead of requiring her to travel such a long distance.