Tiger Cages at Phuhai Prison (Con Dao Prison) "Hell On Earth"

Join the program to explore the solitary confinement area, the tiger cage consists of two zones, each zone has 2 rows, each is 20 cages thick, the top has a grating, there is a corridor for prison guards to torture prisoners whenever they want. In addition, there are 60 rooms without a roof called "sunroom" rooms (divided into 4 blocks, each row has 15 rooms). The solarium is also a place used to torture and sunbathe prisoners, or to drag prisoners out there to beat and torture them.

The prison was built in 1940 in Con Dao district, Ba Ria-Vung Tau province.

The prison has a total area of ​​5,475m2. In which, the area of ​​the cell: 1,408m2, the solarium: 1,873m2, the space: 2,194m2. The tiger cage consists of two areas, each area has 2 rows, each is 20 cages thick, the top has a grating bar, there is a corridor for the prison guards to torture prisoners whenever they want. In addition, there are 60 rooms without a roof called "sunroom" rooms (divided into 4 blocks, each row has 15 rooms). The solarium is also a place used to torture and sunbathe prisoners, or to drag prisoners out there to beat and torture them.

At the end of 1969, before the fierce struggle movement of female prisoners at Chi Hoa prison, the Saigon government saw the unfavorable situation and decided to deport the female prisoners to Con Dao. The exile that time was called "walking on their backs", because the sisters fought fiercely, those who forced them to beat them with batons, mace, tear grenades, handcuffs, carried each of them on their backs, and threw them away. get in the car.

On reaching the island, 342 sisters were immediately pushed into the tiger cage. The tiger cage has two zones, each with 60 cages and 30 stone cellars, holding over 400 people. There was a time when the tiger cages locked thousands of people. Five people were locked in a cage 1.45m wide and 2.5m long. Eating, sleeping, urinating all in the same place. Sisters have to take turns sitting, lying down. At night, they have to alternate between waking and sleeping, often lying on top of each other like "canned sardines".

Within just five years, the special military court of the Saigon government had sentenced to death more than 200 political prisoners, most of them from the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam.

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“Even now, I still get chills when I think about it. Women in prison always suffer more than men. The barbaric and brutal torture that happened to the sisters imprisoned in the tiger cage seemed impossible in the civilized world, but it happened, horrifying" - Ms. Hoang Thi Khanh, head of the joint committee Con Dao political prisoner, former head of the Inspection Committee of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee, reminiscing about his days in Con Dao prison. Those who have been put in the tiger cage are considered to be near death. Prisoners who come here for about three months will usually die from being shackled, tortured, or starved. It must be said that many tourists who journey to this quiet space are choked with tears.

“Eat rice cooked loosely with rotten fish sauce, maggots and dry, bitter rot. The dishes and chopsticks are kept in a dusty dustbin, let the dogs lick them again and again and then feed the prisoners with rice,” said female tiger cage prisoner Nguyen Thi Ni, a native of Go Cong Dong, Tien Giang. When bathing, the sisters collect the water of five people for one person to bathe, taking turns to bathe once every five days.

Bathing water must also be reused three or four times: the "first" water bathed on the head, the "second" water on hands and feet, until the "last" water was already black. “This water is used to wash clothes again,” recalled Ms. Hoang Thi Khanh. To maintain the strength to fight, women have to catch termites and lizards crawling on the cliffs to eat protein. There are many sparrows here, sometimes one of them falls into the tiger's cage, and the sisters immediately catch it, pluck the feathers, tear it apart and put it in a hot pan, then eat it later.

In the tiger cage at that time, there was Mother Sau who was blind in both eyes, and sisters often called her blind Mrs. Her real name is Nguyen Thi Chi, from Quang Nam, although she is 70 years old, her eyes are blind, but she still bravely fights against the flag salute and prison rules. Once, the prison devised a plan to put her in prison with the sisters who had obeyed the rules, offering a hearty meal consisting of a plate of water spinach and hot boiled duck eggs. Knowing this was a ruse, she let go of her chopsticks and did not eat, asked to return to the same cage with the fighting sisters, accepted to eat dry, rotten fish sauce, but remained loyal to her sisters.

In 1966, monk Thich Hanh Tue was arrested, the Saigon government took him to Con Dao to exile and locked him in a tiger cage. In this area, he resolutely refused to salute the flag of the Saigon government and refused to shout "anti-communist" slogans, the prison warden beat him brutally but still could not subdue him. In July 1970, when the US Congress delegation visited the tiger cage, the monk loudly denounced: "I am a Buddhist monk, I was locked up here for no reason just because I love the country, I fight for the claim to restore peace to the Vietnamese people".

The monk, along with the tiger cage prisoners, shouted: "I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, I'm beaten ...". When the delegation left, the guards dragged the monk out to take revenge. A warden asked: "Why did you go to the monastery without salute the national flag? Refusing to shout at Ho Chi Minh Island?". The monk hunched over because of the whip, but still proudly said: "Uncle Ho is the hero of the nation's salvation, so I always respect him, how I can be dowm on him. The three-stick flag is not the flag of my country."

In 1970, from the Tiger Cage 5 students were returned to Saigon, they denounced the Con Dao Tiger Cage regime. In July 1970, the American delegation led by TomHarsKins and journalist Donlux went to Con Dao, discovered the Tiger Cage and witnessed the scene of prisoners being tortured and tortured here. Among them are women, very young students, including a monk and a 60-year-old woman who is blind in both eyes, so on. Midweek 7/1970, the news "The Con Son Tiger Cage has been exposed..." is announced in domestic and foreign newspapers. Before that public opinion, the Saigon puppet government had to demolish the Con Dao Tiger Cage.