By Defend the Defenders, July 23, 2017
In the evening of July 16, Ms. Suong Quynh, an activist in Ho Chi Minh City, was followed and beaten by a group of plainclothes agents on her way returning home from a ceremony which commemorated the passing of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.
The assault was made on Phu My Bridge and the victim recognized one of the attacker a police officer who has monitored surveillance over her.
During the week, authorities in HCM City continue harassing nine environmental activists who were barred from walking to Binh Thuan province to protest waste dumping to the local coast. Police summoned them to local police stations and interrogated them for hours, and keep pressuring on their families and request landlords of some activists to cancel contracts to make them no place for staying. On July 15, the city’s police detained, beat and interrogated Ngo Thi Thu, Tran Dinh Chau, Tran Quynh Nhu Uyen and five others.
Vietnam’s communist government will hold the first court hearing of former prisoner of conscience Nguyen Van Oai in August, his lawyer Ha Huy Son has said. Oai, who was arrested on January 19, may face imprisonment of up to six years, according to Vietnam’s current law.
One week ahead of the trial against human rights activist Tran Thi Nga, the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (an FIDH-OMCT partnership) and the Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR) issued a joint statement calling on Vietnam’s government to immediately and unconditionally release her and drop all charges against her. “The harassment, arbitrary arrest, and trial of Tran Thi Nga follow a familiar pattern of repression that will inevitably continue unless Hanoi enacts significant institutional and legislative reforms, including the amendment of the country’s numerous repressive laws,” said FIDH President Dimitris Christopoulos.
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