Thursday, December 12, 2013
Summary
This report, compiled by the Network of Vietnamese
Bloggers 1, aims to provide a full description of acts of oppression by the
Vietnamese authorities against some citizens who peacefully exercised their
right to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly in celebration of the
International Human Rights Day on December 10.
Background
On November 12, 2013, Vietnam was elected by the
United Nations General Assembly as one of the fourteen members of the United
Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for the 2014-2016 term. It got 184 votes
out of a total of 192, the highest among the candidates, and this was
highlighted by state-owned media as “recognition by the international
community for its recent achievements” 2 in human rights promotion and protection.
On the one hand, the Vietnamese government
reaffirmed that it “fully respects and implements all its human rights
commitments”. The Permanent Mission of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to the
United Nations, in a note verbale dated August 27, 2013, said Vietnam
would undertake fourteen voluntary pledges, including “Promote human rights
education and training to improve the awareness and capacity of law-enforcement
agencies to better ensure peoples’ rights and fundamental freedoms.”
On the other hand, however, the authorities have
attempted to shut down human rights activism inside the country and have been
escalating their oppression of human rights activists, including bloggers.
Attacks
on balloon release in Hanoi
On December 6, 2013, the Network of Vietnamese
Bloggers issued on its website an invitation to social gatherings, saying, “As
Vietnam was recently elected to the UNHRC, the Network of Vietnamese Bloggers
will organize a series of events to promote, foster, and celebrate Human Rights
values.” The events were set to take place on December 8 and 10 in both Hanoi
and Ho Chi Minh City. 3
Shortly after the Network published its invitation
online, all of its active members were put under tight surveillance by police
forces and the so-called “social order defenders” 4. The members’ phones were tapped, some of them were almost kept under
house arrest. Among those were Nghiêm Việt Anh and Nguyễn Đình Hà, the two
bloggers who went to Swedish Embassy in Hanoi on August 7 to hand in Statement
258. Nghiêm Việt Anh said he had never been followed so closely before with a
team of police on guard in front of his apartment round the clock. Nguyễn Đình
Hà was barred from going out, and when he tried to leave home for work, he was
pushed back inside by the local police surrounding his apartment. Another
blogger in Nha Trang, Nguyễn Ngọc Như Quỳnh (aka. Mẹ Nấm, Vietnamese for
“Mother Mushroom”), reported that her Internet connection was cut off every
week night.
Prior to the day of the celebration, a shipment of
the Network’s T-shirts bearing its logo was confiscated by the police at the
Hanoi railway station upon arrival from Ho Chi Minh City.
At the Network's invitation, a group of bloggers
gathered in Thống Nhất Park in the centre of Hanoi to release balloons and
disseminate human rights materials on December 8. The slogan on the green
balloons said, “Our human rights must be respected.” The materials included an
article on basic human rights, copies of the UN Convention against Torture to
which Vietnam is a signatory, and an article introducing this convention.
Photo by Mai Xuân
Dũng
From early in the morning, the park was full of
police, “social order defenders”, and members of “government-organized local
women's associations 5.”
Plainclothes police were all around the place, and ten police lorries were
parked just in front of the park’s main gate on Trần Nhân Tông street. At
around 3pm when the bloggers came and began to distribute human rights balloons
and materials, they were quickly surrounded and outnumbered by these government
forces. Dozens of police, social order defenders and women tried to push the
bloggers away. Some women used megaphones to ask the bloggers to disperse. The
electronic megaphones strongly suggested that these “voluntary” women had been
well prepared in advance of the event.
The bloggers refused to leave, and when many young
people, including children, eagerly joined the balloon release, the policemen
and defenders reacted by pressing burnt cigarettes against the balloons,
blowing them up. They also grabbed the human rights materials to tear them up.
Some ran off after successfully grabbing the materials. Worse, plainclothes
policemen and defenders began to hit the bloggers from their blind sides, then
the perpetrators ran away or escaped into the street crowd, so that it was
impossible to know exactly who beat up the bloggers and how. A female blogger,
Đào Trang Loan (aka. Hư Vô, Vietnamese for “Nothingness”), 23, was punched many
times from behind and even slapped strongly into her face.
Police lieutenant Nguyễn Vũ Huy, ID number 127-459,
seized the rucksack of Phạm Minh Vũ (aka. Sep Pham) and ran off while people
shouted, “Theft! Theft!” A footage showing this seizure and escape was posted online
a few hours later and went viral on the Internet. 6
Unable to disperse the crowd, plainclothes police
and defenders made a collective assault against bloggers Lê Đức Hiền and Phạm
Minh Vũ at around 4.15pm. Being dominated by these aggressive attackers, the
bloggers had to stop their gathering. Even when they left the park at 5pm, the
bloggers were still rushed by the police and defenders outside in the streets,
their belongings taken.
“Dirty bombs” employed
In Ho Chi Minh City on that same day, the
celebrations of the International Human Rights Day were set to take place at
September 23 Park, which lies close to Quách Thị Trang roundabout, District 1,
centre of the City, from 5pm to 7pm.
As planned, at 5pm, about 20 bloggers, including
Nguyễn Hoàng Vi (aka. An Đổ Nguyễn), her sister Nguyễn Thảo Chi (Mss Sapphire),
Phạm Lê Vương Các (Cùi Các), Hoàng Dũng, Phạm Chí Dũng, were present at the
location. Many pedestrians joined them and together they made a crowd of nearly
200 citizens. Then they were quickly surrounded by policemen, “social order
defenders” and the “government-organized masses”, who would soon harass them
and incite disorder to draw away attention. Old women, members of the
state-controlled women's association, tried to take the balloons and blow them
up in their hands in the presence of many pedestrians, including children. Many
copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were robbed and torn up.
The government forces became more aggressive when
the bloggers were about to sit down in a circle to discuss the human rights
documents disseminated. As at the previous celebration in Hanoi, they attacked
the bloggers from the blind sides. Châu Văn Thi (aka. Yêu Nước Việt, Vietnamese
for “Loving My Nation of Vietnam”), was hit from behind on his head. He was
injured and his glasses broken. The attacker ran off quickly.
Nguyễn Tuấn
Anh, a member of the Communist Youth Union, was filmed grabbing documents from
Nguyễn Hoàng Vi, pushing her down and running away with the documents he stole. His acts constituted the crime of “property robbery by snatching” under
Article 136 of the Vietnamese Penal Code, as jurist and blogger Trịnh Hữu Long
pointed out later in an article on his blog. 7
Worst of all, plainclothes police and defenders
threw shrimp sauce 8 at people
who they thought were members of the Network of Vietnamese Bloggers. The
bloggers, stained with this kind of “dirty bombs”, were shocked and had to
disperse in the end.
Nguyễn Nữ Phương Dung (aka. Miu Mạnh Mẽ) wrote in
anger later on her Facebook page, “When
we were just sitting and singing together, ruffians from all around rush in
among our group, beating up Châu Văn Thi and throwing shrimp sauce at us... in
the presence of many policemen and social order defenders who just stood there
with their arms folded watching all those bad things.
Our rights were violated. We, the human rights advocates, were treated in
such a rude way. We tried to be peaceful, we tried to be friendly to you, and
you used violence in return. Why, so why did Vietnam try to win a seat in the
UNHRC? What was that for?” 9
Assault
and battery
Police crackdowns on bloggers did not cease. On the
contrary, they escalated to a worrying climax on the International Human Rights
Day of December 10 in Ho Chi Minh City. Around ten bloggers, who simply sought
to exercise their right to freedom in a peaceful way, were brutally suppressed
when they were going to attend a meeting to celebrate human rights values and
the official inauguration of the Network of Vietnamese Bloggers.
Dozens of policemen, civil defenders and
government-organized women's groups surrounded Nguyễn Hoàng Vi's apartment, who
was with Nguyễn Ngọc Như Quỳnh (aka. Mẹ Nấm) and Quỳnh's 13-month-old son. At
5pm, when Vi and Quỳnh were about to leave - Vi for the meeting, and Quỳnh for
home to take care of her son - these people rushed in the house and beat them
up. The women punched, slapped Vi and Quỳnh, pulled their hair to drag them
back in the house, and even snatched a teddy bear from Quỳnh's son, causing the
child to cry in fright. It is worth noting that while these women were
battering Vi and Quỳnh, the police and defenders huddled around to protect the
attackers from being seen.
Nguyễn Tiền Tuyến, Vi's roommate, a seven-month
pregnant woman, was also beaten when she tried to dissuade the attackers from
assaulting Vi and Quỳnh. Some pedestrians, hearing the noises and coming to
help, were stopped and pushed away by the police outside.
Facebooker Hoang
Dung CDVN
Subsequent to the assault, which lasted for about 15
minutes, the police locked Vi, Quỳnh, and the roommate inside. Images and a
video clip of the assault, posted by Quỳnh to her Facebook page 10, spread
quickly and caused a huge outcry in the Facebook community. Some bloggers went
to help the three women and the little child, and all of them were assaulted
intensely by the police with fists and helmets. Blogger Hoàng Văn Dũng (aka.
Hoàng Dũng), a member of the Vietnam Path Movement, was seriously attacked and
the photo of his face in blood was really shocking. Blogger Trần Hoàng Hận
(aka. Go Find Freedom) was arbitrarily arrested. He was taken to the police
station of Ward 17, Gò Vấp district, and released after a few hours with his
face swollen and bruised. Hận had to spend the next day in hospital.
Meanwhile, the meeting of bloggers in Ho Chi Minh
City was canceled as many of its attendants were prevented from leaving their
home. Some bloggers decided to move to a local church to continue the
celebration. All of them were threatened by the police. Blogger Châu Văn Thi,
26, was stopped on his way home by some “strangers” who kept following him from
days before. Only when Thi implored these “strangers” not to assault him did
they let him go.
In total, there were nine bloggers seriously
attacked in the Human Rights Day celebration in Ho Chi Minh City on December
10.
1. Hoàng Văn Dũng;
2. Nguyễn Ngọc Như Quỳnh and her son;
3. Nguyễn Hoàng Vi;
4. Nguyễn Tiền Tuyến;
5. Trần Hoàng Hận;
6. Nguyễn Lê Viễn Phương;
7. Võ Công Đồng;
8. Bùi Vũ Huy Hoàng;
9. Nguyễn Bá Tín.
During the assaults, the police did not give their victims any reason as to why they were beating them up.
1. Hoàng Văn Dũng;
2. Nguyễn Ngọc Như Quỳnh and her son;
3. Nguyễn Hoàng Vi;
4. Nguyễn Tiền Tuyến;
5. Trần Hoàng Hận;
6. Nguyễn Lê Viễn Phương;
7. Võ Công Đồng;
8. Bùi Vũ Huy Hoàng;
9. Nguyễn Bá Tín.
During the assaults, the police did not give their victims any reason as to why they were beating them up.
In Hanoi, a meeting to celebrate the International
Human Rights Day and inaugurate the Network of Vietnamese Bloggers was held in
Thủy Tạ cafe at the side of Hoàn Kiếm Lake in the central area of Hanoi. Apart
from the already confiscated T-shirts, a banner bearing the words “The Network
of Vietnamese Bloggers celebrates Human Rights Day” was also confiscated at the
print shop prior to the meeting. Everything went on smoothly, however, except
that there was a sudden blackout, then the police came in and closed down the
meeting in the presence of Jonathan D. London, a scholar from City University
of Hong Kong, who attended the meeting and delivered a speech as a blogger and
supporter of human rights and democracy movements in Vietnam.
Police forces kept watching the bloggers closely in
the following days. When this line is being written, bloggers attending the
Human Rights Day celebrations in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are still put under
tight surveillance.
Opinions
by the Network of Vietnamese Bloggers
So far, no reason has been given for all the acts of
oppression, including harassment, confiscation and destruction of human rights
materials, employing “dirty bombs” of shrimp sauce, assault and battery, and
detention. However, the Network of Vietnamese Bloggers believes that the
actions taken by the police and their “supporters”, including the social order
defenders and government-paid women associations, were aimed at suppressing
bloggers, especially active members of the Network, who were peacefully
exercising their right to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.
Further, it's worth noting that the way these government forces barred bloggers
from going out of their homes, even rushed in Nguyễn Hoàng Vi's apartment to
assault three women, including a pregnant one, and a 13-month-old boy, then
locked them up, is an obvious violation of the right to liberty, security, and
freedom of movement.
The Network of Vietnamese Bloggers believes that
human rights protection is the duty of everyone, not just a group of people, an
organization or a government. We believe that it is the right and an obligation
of every Vietnamese person to contribute to protecting the human rights,
including fundamental freedoms and democracy and dignity of our country’s over
ninety million people.
By disseminating human rights materials, the
bloggers just wanted to promote human rights education and improve public
awareness of rights, as stated in the fifth commitment by the Permanent Mission
of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to the United Nations in its note
verbale dated August 27, 2013.
By holding gatherings in public sites, they just
wanted to celebrate the International Human Rights Day given Vietnam's entry
into the UNHRC, and to promote and foster human rights values.
By officially inaugurating the Network of Vietnamese Bloggers, they just wanted to announce the establishment of a non-partisan and non-profit CSO who commits itself to protecting and promoting human rights in Vietnam and contributing to improving the respect for rights in the region and the world.
We strongly condemn all the acts of oppressions,
especially violence against women and children. Suppressive acts by
state-sponsored forces are causing social disorder, sowing division among the
people, undermining community spirit, and smearing the image of Vietnam as a
member of the UNHRC.
--------------------
End
Notes
1 The Network of Vietnamese Bloggers is an assemble of bloggers
across Vietnam who claims that their mission is to promote and protect human
rights, including fundamental freedoms, democracy and dignity. It was de facto
founded on July 18, 2013 when these bloggers released the “258 Statement”,
urging the Vietnamese government to amend its legal system to demonstrate its
UN Human Rights Council candidacy commitment. It was officially inaugurated as a
group advocating for human rights, especially freedom of expression, on
December 10, 2013. Available at: http://tuyenbo258.blogspot.com/2013/07/statement-from-network-of-vietnamese.html
2 Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lương Thanh Nghị made the
confirmation at a weekly press briefing on Thursday, November 7, in Hanoi.
Available at:
http://vovworld.vn/en-us/Spotlight/Vietnam-fully-respects-its-commitments-in-human-rights/193363.vov
4 Social order defenders are civilians hired by the police force in
every ward (phường, the basic adminstrative unit in Vietnam) to support the
police in upholding order. They are uniformed in blue. Equipped with batons and
clubs, they are authorized to crack down on any activities deemed disturbing,
say, by going around, dispersing unorganized markets.
5 Although civil society organizations (CSOs) in Vietnam exist
theoretically in the form of MOs (mass organizations), NGOs (non-governmental
organizations), and CBOs (community-based organizations), most are actually
GONGOs (government-organized NGOs). The MOs are socio-political organizations
established by the Party.
Presently there are six major MOs in Vietnam,
including the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union, the Vietnam Farmers’
Association, the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor (equivalent to a
national trade union), the Vietnamese Fatherland Front, the Vietnam Women’s
Union, and the Vietnam Veterans Association. These CSOs are led by communist
officials who are appointed by the Party; their permanent staff are civil
servants; and they are subsidized by the state budget. Their main function, as
determined by the Law on the Issuance of Legal Documents (2008), is to coordinate
with authorities in law-making and to instruct the policies of the Party and
the government. They each have a network of local associations operating in
every ward. The Women's Union, for example, has thousands of local associations
across the country. They are actively involved in controlling civil society but
have never reportedly raised their voice against any case of women's rights
violation.
Members of the Communist Youth Union and Women's
Union have been employed to crack down on “uncontrolled civil society
activities”, including protest rallies and the establishment of unrecognized
NGOs such as the Network of Vietnamese Bloggers.
Posted
by Đoan Trang at 6:41 PM
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