A/HRC/25/60/Add.2 (b) UA 20/09/2013 Case No. VNM 6/2013 State reply: None to date Alleged arrest, illtreatment, and sentencing of a female labour rights activist. 185. The Special Rapporteur regrets that the Government of Vietnam has not responded to this communication, thereby failing to cooperate with the mandate issued by the Human Rights Council. The communication referred to the alleged arrest and ill-treatment of MsX, a labour rights defender. Ms. X was the subject of a November 2012 Opinion of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which requested her release. Ms. X was arrested in February 2010 due to her involvement in a strike at the My Phong Leather Shoes factory in Tra Vinh province, and was allegedly beaten, subjected to intimidation, pressured to admit her guilt, and denied access to counsel during her eight months in pre-trial detention. Ms. X was reportedly convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison after a one-day trial in October 2010. During subsequent detention in three separate prisons, Ms. X allegedly continued to suffer beatings, was subjected to inadequate living conditions, placed in solitary confinement, denied access to medical care, and forced to perform hard labor. Concern was expressed that her detention and ill-treatment was a result of her work in claiming and defending labour rights, and Ms. X remained in detention at the time of this communication. In this context, the Special Rapporteur reminds the Government of Vietnam of its obligation under paragraph 1 of Human Rights Council resolution 16/23, which "[c]ondemns all forms of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, including through intimidation, which shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever and can thus never be justified, and calls upon all States to implement fully the absolute and non-derogable prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." With regard to the alleged solitary confinement of Ms. X, the Special Rapporteur would also recalls paragraph 6 of General Comment 20 of the Human Rights Committee, which states that prolonged solitary confinement of the detained or imprisoned person may amount to acts prohibited by article 7 [on the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment] of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and to article 7 of the Basic Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners, which provides that “efforts addressed to the abolition of solitary confinement as a punishment, or to the restriction of its use, should be undertaken and encouraged.” The Special Rapporteur reiterates paragraph 7b of Human Rights Council Resolution 16/23, which urges States “(t)o take persistent, determined and effective measures to have all allegations of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment investigated promptly, effectively and impartially by an independent, competent domestic authority” and “to hold persons who encourage, order, tolerate or perpetrate such acts responsible [and] have them brought to justice and punished in a manner commensurate with the gravity of the offence.” The Special Rapporteur recalls Rule 22(2) of the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, which provides that “[s]ick prisoners who require specialist treatment shall be transferred to specialized institutions or to civil hospitals. Where hospital facilities are provided in an institution, their equipment, furnishings and pharmaceutical supplies shall be proper for the medical care and treatment of sick prisoners, and there shall be a staff of suitable trained officers.” (Approved by the Economic and Social Council by resolutions 663 C (XXIV) of 31 July 1957 and 2076 (LXII) of 13 May 1977.) The treatment to which Ms. X was subjected defeats the object and purpose of the Convention Against Torture, which Vietnam has signed but not yet ratified. The Special Rapporteur calls on the Government to undertake a prompt and independent investigation into the alleged arbitrary detention and ill-treatment of Ms. X, leading to prosecution and punishment of the perpetrators, and to provide full redress to the victim. 136