Vietnamese Blogger Harassed, Beaten by Plainclothes Police
RFA
– Dec. 10, 2014
Vietnamese online
democracy activist Nguyen Hoang Vi was beaten by plainclothes security officers
near her home in Ho Chi Minh City in an apparent bid to thwart plans by her and
friends to mark International Human Rights Day, the blogger said Wednesday.
The assault took place at about 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday as she returned home
following a visit to a local hair salon, Vi told RFA’s Vietnamese Service in an
interview. It was the third such attack launched against the veteran blogger in
the last two years.
“When I was on my way home, I saw three women riding two motorbikes who
maneuvered their bikes to hit me, and though I moved onto the pavement and tried
not to react, they still chased after me,” she said.
“They rode ahead of me and then turned around to hit me again,” she said, adding
that when she turned around she saw “many plainclothes security men and women
behind me.”
Though she tried to run home, Vi said, she was quickly surrounded and brutally
beaten.
“One of the women on a bike that had struck me shouted that I was having an
affair with her husband,” she said.
Her attackers left her after she fell to the ground and area residents began to
gather nearby, she said.
Though she called her commune’s police chief for help, “The people who witnessed
the attack knew that the police had set this up and told me not to wait, that
the police would not come, and they urged me to call a taxi to take me to the
hospital.”
After she had summoned a cab, though, security officers stopped the vehicle and
ordered its driver to take her home, she said.
“They have now been around my house since yesterday, watching me day and night
and not letting me out of the house,” she said.
Attacked before
Vi said she had been hurt in two similar attacks in the past—once when she and
her family were assaulted by police following a “human rights picnic” on May 6,
2013, and a second time at a coffee shop on International Human Rights Day, Dec.
10, the same year.
“They snatched a teddy bear from blogger Me Nam and her child, and hundreds of
people including women then attacked me and Me Nam,” she said.
Tuesday’s attack may have been prompted by efforts by Vi and her friends to
observe the annual human rights event again this year, she said.
“On Dec. 8, the Vietnam Bloggers Network organized a small party to celebrate
International Human Rights Day and the anniversary of the network’s founding.”
Security forces had not prepared for the party, though, because they did not
know about it ahead of time, she said.
“And so they could not stop it, though parties in Nha Trang city and Hanoi were
all blocked,” she said.
“The next day, they started following me and took their revenge."
International human
rights groups and the United States have repeatedly criticized Vietnam for
arresting citizens who peacefully voice their views and have urged the country
to improve its human rights record.
Paris-based press freedoms advocacy group Reporters Without Borders says Vietnam
currently holds at least 34 bloggers in detention.
Reported by Hoa Ai for RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Written in English by Richard
Finney.