Dong Tam Trial Opens in Vietnam, Defense Cites Violations of Due Process
RFA | 09-08-2020
The trial in Vietnam of 29 villagers detained after a deadly land clash near
Hanoi opened this week with defense lawyers protesting irregularities in court
procedure, objecting to a film shown in court and telling the judge they are
being denied the right to meet with their clients during the trial.
The trial opened Monday, with the group facing charges of murder and obstruction
for what prosecutors said was their role in the clash over land rights that left
three police officers and a protest leader dead in January at the Dong Tam
commune outside Hanoi.
Dong Tam village elder Le Dinh Kinh, 84, was shot and killed by police during
the early-morning Jan. 9 raid on the village by 3,000 security officers
intervening in a long-running dispute over a military airport construction site
about 25 miles south of the capital.
At the lunch break on the first day of the 10-day trial, ten defense attorneys
filed an application with the chief justice of the People’s Court of Hanoi
pointing to what they described as violations of court procedure and demanding
the lawyers’ right to meet with their clients during the trial.
A documentary on the Dong Tam clash broadcast by the court also presented the
government’s point of view in falsely accusing the defendants of committing
crimes, thereby prejudicing their right to a fair trial, defense attorney Dang
Dinh Manh told RFA’s Vietnamese Service on Monday.
“I challenged this, because the documentary had been heavily edited and had not
been submitted as evidence in the case,” he said.
Video clips were also shown in which defendants appeared to confess their guilt,
but which had never been shown to defense attorneys in the case, Dang said,
adding, “ According to law, everything that is submitted must be included in the
pre-trial profile for the case, and lawyers have the right to learn about them
first.”
Forced confessions common
“Use of torture and forced confessions are common in police custody in Vietnam,”
Phil Robertson, Deputy Asia Director of Human Rights Watch said in a Sept. 7
statement, noting that detainees shown confessing on Vietnamese television less
than a week after the Dong Tam clash had “many bruises on their faces.”
“There are still many unanswered questions about what happened during the Dong
Tam raid that may never be answered in Hanoi’s rush to convict these
defendants,” Robertson said. “Quite clearly, the authorities want to hit them
with very harsh penalties to warn off others who might dare to challenge state
authority in the future.”
To support transparency and fairness in the trial, Vietnam should allow
international observers including journalists, diplomats, and nongovernmental
organizations to observe proceedings in the court, Robertson said.
Defendants’ relatives and other Dong Tam residents, some of whom had walked the
35 miles from their commune to the court, were meanwhile blocked from attending
the trial on Monday, while many activists living in Hanoi were stopped by police
from leaving their homes.
“This morning, relatives of the 29 defendants and other villagers arrived at the
court in Hanoi, but no one was allowed to go in to observe the trial. Police
even forced us to stay away from the courthouse gate,” one Dong Tam resident
told RFA on Monday.
“We could only get updates on information about the trial on the television, but
these broadcasts were cut and edited incorrectly,” the resident said, speaking
on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation by the authorities.
Closely watched by police
Hanoi-based activist Le Hoang said that police had watched the front of his
house all night before the trial, working in shifts, while detained activist
Trinh Ba Phuong’s wife Do Thi Thu said that a large number of police dressed in
plain clothes had arrived at her house on Monday morning and were “watching me
and my parents very closely.”
On Tuesday, a group of six Vietnamese civil society organizations and
individuals and over 50 local residents sent a letter to Vietnam’s President
Nguyen Phu Trong and Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, demanding that authorities
protect Bui Viet Hieu, a defendant in the trial, whose testimony in court has
contradicted statements by police on the death of Le Dinh Kinh.
Bui should now be transferred to a detention center not under the authority of
local police, and the 29 defendants’ trial should be postponed, with Vietnam’s
National Assembly sending representatives to oversee the investigation and
prosecution of the case, the petition said.
While all land in Vietnam is ultimately held by the state, land confiscations
have become a flashpoint as residents accuse the government of pushing small
landholders aside in favor of lucrative real estate projects, and of paying too
little in compensation.
Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Huy Le. Written in English
by Richard Finney.
Vietnam Human Rights Network |