Become a Member for $9.99/month

The script is familiar: appear on state television, read a prepared confession, deny any police torture, and appeal for leniency. Particularly in cases involving the crime of "opposing the government," Việt Nam constantly repeats this ritual.

Once a confession is delivered on camera, the story is essentially over. The perpetrator admits guilt, the authorities close the file, and public discussion is reduced to powerless venting.

However, these spectacles inevitably revive an old question: does coerced confession actually occur inside Việt Nam’s interrogation rooms?

This doubt is rooted in precedent, specifically in wrongful convictions throughout Việt Nam’s judicial history. While coercing confessions to extract the truth is already unethical, in this country, coercion has frequently gone further—forcing people to admit to acts they never committed.

False Confessions, Innocents Behind Bars

Coerced confessions likely recur frequently because Việt Nam has experienced wrongful convictions. But the judicial system has made mistakes and had to apologize to those it wrongfully convicted.

The case of Huỳnh Văn Nén serves as a prime example. Convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, Nén spent 18 years behind bars before his case was reopened and he was declared innocent. What is particularly telling is that Nén had confessed during the early stages of the investigation. That single confession was deemed sufficient to construct a case file, validate the investigative outcome, and secure a guilty verdict.

Only years later did a review reveal issues that should have been apparent from the start: contradictory testimony, a lack of evidence, and signs that the confession was not obtained voluntarily.

While the state eventually compensated Nén with 10 billion đồng (approximately $385,000 USD) for his 18 years of wrongful imprisonment, justice remained incomplete. [1] Twelve investigators were merely disciplined internally rather than prosecuted, despite Nén’s specific request for criminal proceedings against those who had tortured him. [2]

False, involuntary confessions exist, and they have sent innocent people to prison.

Confessions as the Core of a Case

In many criminal cases, including that of Huỳnh Văn Nén, the decisive element is not physical evidence but testimony. Once an investigation concludes and the case file is finalized, that documentation almost automatically becomes the established “truth.” From that point on, the legal process is based on what is in the file, not on what really happened.

If a confession exists in the file, it becomes the central axis of the trial. Attempts to recant are easily dismissed as tactics to evade guilt and are frequently subject to “correction.” This dynamic places extraordinary weight on early-stage testimony; a single statement obtained during the initial days of an investigation can effectively dictate the trajectory of the entire case, from prosecution to verdict.

The Face of Coercion

When discussing coerced confessions, many imagine scenes from old films involving beatings and brute force. In reality, coercion in Việt Nam is often invisible, leaving no marks to attract suspicion. As one source who has undergone multiple interrogations testified: “Physical pain is actually easy to endure. Beatings are simple to endure. Psychological pressure is what’s hard to withstand.”

Violence is merely one component of a sophisticated process aimed at the submission of the mind. According to accounts, detainees may be beaten upon arrest, but this is often a setup for a "good cop/bad cop" routine. After a "bad" officer threatens and abuses the detainee, a "good" officer intervenes with sympathy and advice. This psychological whiplash often causes the detainee to cling to the "good" officer and yield to their suggestions.

Total isolation exacerbates this manipulation. Cut off from family, lawyers, and loved ones, the detainee’s world shrinks to a single room. In this state, mental resilience deteriorates rapidly. Pretrial detention is often described as the most brutal stage—harsher than the prison sentence itself. There are even cases where detainees are beaten with batons immediately upon being taken in.

Once the detainee is terrified and mentally subdued, the "proper" interrogation begins. This is when recording devices are finally switched on, capturing only the "appropriate" segments where the detainee, now disoriented and depleted, follows the investigator's leading questions. They do not need to be forced to confess explicitly; they simply nod along to a predetermined narrative just to make the ordeal end.

These accounts reveal that the goal of interrogation is psychological disorientation. When viewed against the backdrop of individuals disappearing for months only to reappear giving fluent confessions on television, the public suspicion of coercion is difficult to dismiss.

Does Vietnamese Law Prohibit Coerced Confessions?

The answer is yes; otherwise, the system would be the law of the jungle. On paper, the 2015 Criminal Procedure Code strictly prohibits torture, coercion, and any act that distorts a detainee's will. [3] It also mandates protections such as the right to silence, legal counsel, and audio-video recording of interrogations.

However, significant loopholes undermine these theoretical protections.

The first issue is recording. While formal interrogations must be recorded, preliminary “working sessions” or periods of temporary detention often are not. This creates a blind spot during the most vulnerable early stages of detention. Furthermore, the recorded data is controlled entirely by the investigative authorities—the very people suspected of coercion—leaving the defense without independent access to the evidence.

The second issue is the delayed access to counsel. While the law guarantees a lawyer, in practice, counsel is often excluded until the investigation is nearly complete and the narrative is set.

Finally, the lack of transparency turns the process into a gray zone. The public sees only the final verdict or televised confession, with no insight into the closed-door interactions that produced them. With so many loopholes in the law and despite legal prohibitions, the system retains ample space for coercion to flourish.

***

It would be inaccurate to claim that every case in Việt Nam relies on coerced confessions or that every televised statement results from abuse. However, it is undeniable that police coercion is a reality, not a rumor.

The record of overturned wrongful convictions and witness testimonies proves that inside interrogation rooms, people have been—and likely still are—forced to speak against their will. The public typically sees only the final act: a polished confession and assurances of proper procedure. But the reality behind those words—the hours of interrogation, the days of detention, and the psychological pressure—remains a secret known only to those who survived it.

Thúc Kháng wrote this article in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on Dec. 31, 2025. Đàm Vĩnh Hằng translated it into English for The Vietnamese Magazine.

References: +

1. VnExpress. (2017, November 21). 12 cán bộ gây oan sai cho ông Huỳnh Văn Nén bị kiểm điểm. vnexpress.net . https://vnexpress.net/12-can-bo-gay-oan-sai-cho-ong-huynh-van-nen-bi-kiem-diem-3673675.html

2. See [1]

3. National Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. (2015). Criminal Procedure Code No. 101/2015/QH13 dated November 27, 2015 (Bộ luật tố tụng hình sự). Retrieved from https://thuvienphapluat.vn/van-ban/Trach-nhiem-hinh-su/Bo-luat-to-tung-hinh-su-2015-296884.aspx