This is grim reading but not surprisng. Perhaps we can consider the actions of Vietnam's Stalinist regime "merciful" in comparison to what they might have done twenty years ago, which is to say, public executions or life terms in the Bamboo Gulag for not only Pham Hong Son but also his whole family. "Pour encourager les autres," as they say.
If the Twentieth Century taught us nothing else, we should have seen that this is the nature of totalitarian regimes, whatever ideology they claim to espouse. It ashames me that so many Western nations, including the US, trade with genocidal police states like Vietnam, but it no longer surprises me. We--and by "we" I do not merely mean the US--have sacrificed all our dearest ideals on the altar of "free trade," which is to say, profits for the few at the expense of the many, even if it means importing goods made by political prisoner slave labor, even if it means trading with nations that arm and train terrorists.
"I used to be disgusted, but now I'm just amused." --Elvis Costello