Vietnam President Promotes Security Chief amid Political Suppression

to lam

by Vu Quoc Ngu

Defend the Defenders | Sept 17, 2014

Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang has promoted Deputy Minister of Public Security To Lam to senior lieutenant general amid rising political suppression, state media reported.

Mr. Lam, 57, chief of the Vietnam security forces, became the fifth deputy police minister with a senior lieutenant general rank. Other two deputy ministers are lieutenant generals.

Mr. Lam’s appointment was made prior to the ruling communist party’s National Congress slated in 2016. The one-party regime is tightening control over political dissent and civil societies.

Last month, Vietnam’s communist government imprisoned Bui Thi Minh Hang, one of the most famous anti-China activists and human rights fighters, on fabricated traffic offenses.

Several months earlier, Vietnam arrested Nguyen Huu Vinh, a prominent blogger co-founder of popular AnhBaSam website.

A number of political dissidents and social activists have been attacked by mobs while others have been harassed by security forces, according to independent human rights bodies and foreign media.

On Sept 16, the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch released a report on police brutality in the communist nation, saying Vietnam’s police severely abused people in custody in every region.

In its 96-page report titled “Public Insecurity: Deaths in Custody and Police Brutality in Vietnam,” the HRW documented abuses in 44 of Vietnam’s 58 provinces, throughout the country and in all five of the country’s major cities in the period between October 2010 and July 2014.

Accordingly, 14 Vietnamese died in custody as admitted by the police were the result of police violence, four died of unexplained cause in police custody, while six deaths were allegedly from suicide and four allegedly from illness during detention.

In addition, 11 other Vietnamese citizens reported that they were severely beaten by policemen in the past four years, according to HRW’s statistics.

Vietnamese police act more like a political agency to safeguard the communist party’s hold on power than a professional force for public safety, said HRW. Vietnam lacks a strong legal culture, has relatively few checks-and-balances on those in power and has a state-controlled media that is discouraged from investigative journalism, it noted.