hundreds of poems, and articles and reports that condemn corruption, injustice, and human rights abuses. A veteran of the People's Liberation Army, he is a member of the Nghe An Writers Club. His 1988 novel, Doi Ban Tu (Two Companions in Prison) described the arbitrary nature of Vietnam's legal system and the inhuman conditions in Vietnamese prisons. Poems published under the title Dieu Chua Thay (Things Still Untold) speak about life without freedom and justice. Tran Duc Thach has been repeatedly harassed since 1975. In 1978, the pressure became so harsh that he set himself on fire and was badly burned. Since then, he has been arrested 10 times and brought to court four times, each time released for lack of evidence. In 2009, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention determined that he had been wrongfully and arbitrarily detained after his last arrest in September 2008. Despite this he was sentenced to a three-year prison term, which will be followed by three years of house arrest.from Human Rights Watch: Banned, Censored, Harassed, and Jailed: Hellman/Hammett Grants Honor 42 Writers for Courage Facing Political Persecution
also Human Rights Watch: Vietnam: Writers Honored for Commitment to Free Speech
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