7,000 Vietnamese inmates write apology letters to victims Inmates at Thu Duc prison in Binh Thuan Province are seen receiving amnesty certificates at a ceremony in 2013. Tuoi Tre Managers of a prison in a central Vietnamese province wrapped up Saturday a program in which over 7,000 prisoners wrote letters to express remorse for what they had done to their victims and the latter’s families. The management board of Thu Duc prison concluded the “Writing Letters of Apology” program launched last year by the Ministry of Public Security at a ceremony in Ham Tan District, Binh Thuan Province.  The program was divided into two stages, with the first running from July 2013 to November 2013 and the second from December 2013 to February 2014. Almost 90 percent, or 7,052 inmates, of the total prisoners at Thu Duc took part in the program and wrote letters of apology to their victims, the families of their victims as well as to their parents, spouses, friends and others to seek forgiveness for their past faults.  The apology letters include those from former doctor Tran Anh Huy at Children's Hospital I, located in Ho Chi Minh City, who was given a 7-year sentence in 2013 for causing a road accident that killed two people and injured five others in 2011; from Tran Chinh, who was sentenced to 18 years behind bars for murder; and from 20-year-old prisoner Nguyen Thi Hong Loan to her mother for dishonoring her family.  Huy’s letter reads: “Dear the victims in the accident that I caused on October 7, 2011! I think of it every day over the past 28 months. I was a doctor and I hoped to save as many patients as I could. When I worked for Children's Hospital I, I was extremely happy every time I saved the patients who suffered from serious diseases or even stopped breathing. Nevertheless, I caused the accident that brought you so much pain and suffering. Nothing can compensate for the loss I inflicted on you. I would engrave your forgiveness forever in my heart.”  At the ceremony, the board also organized reunions for the inmates and their families as well as meetings between the convicts and their victims or their victims’ families in order to help relieve their guilt feelings. Tuoi Tre