To our dearest Vietnamese and all people who love democracy and justice in the world,
As we have known, on the night of the 8th and the early morning of the 9th, January 2020, Vietnamese armed police, equipped with full weapons and ammunition, operated a violent armed attack in Hoanh village, Dong Tam commune (My Duc District, Hanoi). The authorities occupied Mr. Le Dinh Kinh’s house to attack all family members and shot to kill him brutally. Mr. Kinh was an 84-year-old village – leader of the farmers who fought to protect their land rights in Dong Tam.
Despite no organization has proceeded with an independent investigation on the incident in Dong Tam, anyone who possesses a little knowledge about law and justice could see that it was a crime operated by the government. The government organized a raid with thousands of armed police forces, used weapons to attack citizen’s houses at night, which they ridiculously claimed to obtain a “civil purpose”. The government yet did not conduct any other peaceful procedures to reduce violence according to rules of law.
More seriously, after the attack, the government, specifically the Ministry of Public Security, proceeded to seal off information and hid their crime. The police arrested the whole extended family members of Mr. Le Dinh Kinh and later only released a few women. All his sons and grandsons have been held in police detention. The government put the sons of Mr. Le Dinh Kinh and a few others on national television to force them “confess” the alleged crimes but people could see they suffered terrible physical abuse and tortures with bruised faces. With more violation of law, after the horrible attack and killed Mr. Kinh, the police officers took away/robed all of Mr. Kinh’s family’s properties such as safety box including money and personal things, car, and all of the original paperwork involved in the land dispute in Dong Tam. They also destroyed all the maps of the disputed land on the wall and destroyed most of Mr. Kinh’s house.
A community call on social media to support the residents of Dong Tam happened right after the brutal attack of January 9, 2020. In those next few days, Vietnamese citizens have sent over half a billion VND to donate to Mr. Le Dinh Kinh’s funeral expenses.
But under Vietnamese police pressure, on January 17, 2020, Vietcombank (Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam) blocked access to Mrs. Nguyen Thuy Hanh’s bank account which contains 528.453.669 VND for Mr. Le Dinh Kinh’s funeral expenses. The Ministry of Public Security also gave out threatened warnings for people who would want to donate for Mr. Kinh’s family and the people of Dong Tam, which is a serious violation of law and human rights!
All the men in the family including his sons and grandsons have been arrested, so Mr. Le Dinh Kinh’s family now only has his wife and daughters who are suffering pain and under the police’s guard. Therefore the family does not have any sources of income, leave alone that they would also still need to visit imprisoned family members and hire lawyers to defend them. Most urgently, the police continue to threaten, interrogate, and force these “still free” women to confess “crimes” which they did not perform. The police and authorities also prevent these women from reaching out to the public for help and find ways to kill off their livelihood.
The Hanoi government has committed a brutal crime with a horribly violent attack on the village’s citizens, the criminal armed police who carried out the attack and murdering are still not punished under the police-state, as they abuse power to suppress people and now continue to violate the law and human rights to suppress and threaten innocent citizens.
What about us who want democracy, freedom, and the rule of law for Vietnam – can we accept this scenario?
No, Never!
Let’s join hands in helping Mr. Le Dinh Kinh’s family and the people of Dong Tam and raise our voice, to the least that the survivors could continue their fight for their rights, to hire lawyers to protect the lives of those who were imprisoned with the trumped-up charges from the police.
Let’s join hands in helping Mr. Le Dinh Kinh’s family and the people of Dong Tam commune so that the authoritarian regime ruled by the police understands that it could not continue to deceive the people and fabricated crimes. Justice must be upheld, and human rights have to be protected in Vietnam!
We sincerely thank you!
Quynh Tran Vi and community group members calling for support.
