Vietnam Puts Pressure on Family Who Allege Police Brutality in
Son’s Death
RFA - 10/19/2015
Vietnamese
authorities on Monday asked the family of a man who died in police custody to
withdraw a letter they had written to the United Nations Human Rights Council
requesting an investigation of his death, the man’s mother said.
Police detained Do Dang Du, 17, from Dong Phuong Yen village in Hanoi’s Chuong
My district, on Aug. 5 for committing petty theft. The district police chief
signed an order to hold him for two months while officers investigated the
crime.
But on Oct. 4 while Du was still in custody, he was beaten unconscious and
remained in a coma until he died six days later.
Do Thi Mai, Du’s mother, told RFA’s Vietnamese Service that a representative
from the People’s Council, a local body of power in the authoritarian state,
came to her house and asked her to withdraw the letter, which the she wrote to
the U.N. on Oct. 16.
“He was not a policeman,” Mai said. “He told us to withdraw our letter and not
to do anything, just wait for the police to compensate us, and that I could
receive the money at home or go to the village office to get it.”
But Mai told the representative that the family had authorized lawyers to
represent them, so they would have to consult their attorneys about his
suggestion, she said.
She said the family had decided to contact the U.N.’s Human Rights Council and
lawyers inside Vietnam for help because they believed that police brutally beat
Du and killed him.
“I don’t understand the law because I did not go to school, so I had to ask for
help from lawyers,” she said.”
Tran Thu Nam, one of the family’s lawyers, said he had advised Du’s relatives on
how to work with the U.N., and that someone from the organization’s Human Rights
Council had contacted the family.
“They asked me for advice, and I told them if the person [who contacted them] is
truly from the U.N., then they will be better protected,” he said.
“If the U.N. Human Rights Council gets involved, this could have a huge impact
on the government of Vietnam,” he said. “I only gave them advice on how to
cooperate with the council. I don’t know how they met or who connected them.”
Nam said he saw in the media and on Facebook that authorities asked the family
to withdraw the letter, but he had not received any further information from
them.
“We should not jump to conclusions, even with information given by the family,
because it’s too early for them to see through things. … We need to be cautious
when judging an event. As a lawyer, I need to have evidence [to present].”
Many people, especially the poor, do not know much about the law and their
legal rights, Nam said.
Although Vietnam offers legal services for poor people, many do not know how to
use them, so the services are not very popular, he said.
“With the Do Dang Du case, they will know how important the role of lawyers is
in finding the truth and protecting their rights according to the law,” he said.
Blame it on the cellmate
Vietnam’s state-controlled media reported that Du’s cellmate, Vu Van Binh, beat
him on Oct. 4. After Du collapsed, police took him to the emergency room at a
hospital in Hanoi’s Ha Dong district, but doctors transferred him to Bach Mai
hospital, a highly specialized medical center in Dong Da district.
Du’s family, who found out about his hospitalization on Oct. 6, told VOA earlier
this month that the injuries covering Du’s body indicated that the police had
tortured him.
On Oct. 8, two days before Du died of his injuries, the Hanoi police issued a
decision to prosecute Binh for beating Du to death.
Police brutality in Vietnam is a common human rights violation. Scores of people
detained on minor charges often die each year while in custody, where they are
beaten to extract confessions, sometimes for crimes they say they did not
commit, or for criticizing police officers.
Tran Thi Nga, a human rights activist and member of the independent movement
Vietnam Women for Human Rights, said Du’s family contacted her organization to
publicize the story of their son’s death on social media.
“They [the family] knew that I was the one who publicized news about other cases
like [those of death-row prisoners] Ho Duy Hai and Nguyen Van Chuong, so they
contacted me and wanted my help to spread the news and give them legal advice,”
she said.
Nga was one of four rights activists physically attacked by policemen and
several unidentified individuals on Aug. 29 in the Central Highlands province of
Lam Dong, following a celebration for the release of human rights journalist
Tran Minh Nhat.
Some human rights activists visited Du’s family after he died, when his
relatives had taken his body back to their village for burial, she said.
But police harassed them along with others who went to pay tribute to Du, and
officers badly beat activist Truong Van Dung, Nga said.
Du’s family needs more support in their quest for justice, she said.
“If people do not say anything about the Do Dang Du case, then in the future
there will be more like it where people die in police custody,” Nga said.
Reported by Gia Minh for RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Viet Ha.
Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.