Authorities across Vietnam Tighten Control on Alert of Mass Protests

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Hanoi-based activist Ngo Duy Quyen said plainclothes agents locked the corridor in which is located his apartment on the evening of June 16

 

Defend the Defenders, June 17, 2018

 

Authorities in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and other localities across Vietnam are tightening control on alert of mass protests during the weekend after the passage ofthe Law on Cyber Security.

Police, including riot police and under-cover ones, and militia weredeployed in major city centers. In Hanoi and HCM City, many walking streets wereclosed for public and others barricaded.

Plainclothes agents and militia werealso sent to station near private residences of local activists, effectively placing them de facto under house arrest over the weekend.

Pro-democracy campaigner and human rights defender Ngo Duy Quyen, husband of former political prisoner Le Thi Cong Nhan, said police locked their corridor in the evening of Saturday, imprisoning people from his family and several neighbors during the night.

Activists in HCM City said the local police detained dissident singer Nguyen Tin on the evening of June 15 and still keep him incommunicado. In the morning of June 17, police detained a number of activists, including Nguyen Ngoc Lua and Truong Thi Ha.

Activists said security forces are patroling in Phan Thiet and Phan Ri in Binh Thuan and move from street to street to arrest all suspicious residents. Hundreds of people have been arrested after protest turnedviolent on June 10.

Although the right to assembly is enshrined in the country’s 2013 Constitution, Vietnam’s communist government does not welcome spontanous public protests, treating them as “illegal gatherings” and use all means to disperse.

Police said they will prosecute many people on allegation of “causing public disorders” and “disruption of security.”