Vietnamese Police Burned by Acid as They Evict Family
RFA –
04/14/2015
An
attempted forced eviction of a family in a province in southern Vietnam on
Tuesday led to a clash with authorities that resulted in arrests and injuries on
both sides in which several people were burned by acid, those who witnessed the
event said.
Twenty officers were attacked—two of them stabbed with knives and 18 burned by
acid—according to a report in Vietnam’s Tuoi Tre newspaper.
Police from Thach Hoa district in Long An province went to the home of Nguyen
Trung Can and his wife Mai Thi Kim Huong to evict their family, although sources
did not cite a reason for their eviction.
Authorities routinely evict people from their homes in Vietnam to make way for
development projects.
The couple remained inside when police arrived, and did not want to let them
enter. Nguyen Trung Can reportedly held a bottle of acid to deter police from
going in, sources said.
“The police came to evict the people, leading to a clash between two sides,”
Phung Thi Xuan Lan, the sister of Phung Thi Ly, another victim of the clash,
told RFA’s Vietnamese Service.
“My sister came out and when she returned, police arrested her. They beat her
brutally. I was outside with another sibling and could not witness the whole
thing, but I know they beat her really badly. My youngest brother was also
beaten brutally.”
Duong Thi Bich Thuy, the daughter of Phung Thi Ly, told RFA that the police had
detained some people at the Thach Hoa district police station.
“I wanted to go inside to check whether or not they still detained some people
inside,” she said. “I knew they did, but I just wanted to make sure that my
relatives were in there. They [the police] did not let me in, so I waited
outside.”
Bich Thuy said police arrived at the house in the morning in more than 10
vehicles, and that one of the occupants of Trung Can’s home splashed an officer
with acid, prompting the police to attack them.
Trung Can then set his house on fire, while police threw stones inside it, she
said.
Bich Thuy said she did not know who threw the acid at the officer, but that a
member of Can’s family was also splashed with it.
“Police got inside the house, and they beat people brutally and arrested them,”
she said. “Anybody standing nearby was arrested too.”
Nguyen Van Thuy, chief of police of Thach An village, was splashed with acid on
his back and taken to Cho Ray hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, according to the
report in Tuoi Tre.
Xuan Lan told RFA that Trung Can, Thi Ly and Thi Ly’s son were among those
arrested.
State media reported that police arrested all the family members who were
involved in the clash.
Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by RFA’s Vietnamese Service.
Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.