![Handcuffed Nguyen Mai Trung Tuan in court room today [March 2]](/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/12806069_1344816012212603_6811281109599357223_n-205x300.jpg)
Handcuffed Nguyen Mai Trung Tuan in court room today [March 2]
The court rejected the lawyers’ defense and imposed the heavy sentence on the boy whose final statement in court is to come back to school to continue his study.
By Vu Quoc Ngu, March 02, 2016
The People’s Court in Vietnam’s southern province of Long An on March 2 rejected the appeal of 15-year-old boy Nguyen Mai Trung Tuan, saying the boy is guilty for attacking police with acid when local authorities deployed police and militia to seize his family’s land in mid-April last year.
However, the court reduced his sentence to 30 months in prison. On November 24 last year, the People’s Court in the Long An province’s Thach Hoa district gave him 54 months of imprisonment for intentionally inflicting injury on state officials under Article 104 of the country’s Penal Code.
Similar to the first hearing, eleven lawyers defending the boy insisted in the court room that his client is innocent since the boy’s act was not intentional and was triggered by police violence during the land seizure. The lawyers also said the court used the temporary health tests of the injured policemen which were not carried out according to proper procedures.
The court rejected the lawyers’ defense and imposed the heavy sentence on the boy whose final statement in court is to come back to school to continue his study.
Nearly one hundred of Vietnamese activists from Ho Chi Minh City and other southern provinces came to Long An to attend the open trial, however, they were not allowed to enter the courtroom so they stayed outside and listened through a loudspeaker. Security agents closely monitored the activists and tried to bar them from moving around the court building.
Security forces also detained activist Le Thi Em but released her after the court ended.
The sentence makes Tuan the third member of his family to be jailed in the same land grabbing case. In September last year, his father Nguyen Trung Can and mother Mai Thi Kim Huong were tried and imprisoned for causing public disorder after they opposed local authorities’ seizure of their land seven months ago. The father and mother were sentenced to prison terms of three years and three and half years, respectively.
Also in the same case, ten people from two other families were sentenced to between two and three and half years in prison for opposing the local authorities, in the first hearing in mid September last year.
On April 14, 2015, Long An’s authorities sent numerous policemen and militia to evict the three families, including the four-member family of Can and Huong, out of their land to make way for an embankment project. However, they met strong objection from the land owners who have not agreed to the proposed compensation of VND300,000 per square meter.
According to state-run newspapers, the farmers used gas cylinder and knifes to protect their land, and threw acid at policemen, burning 15 officers, one of officer had to seek treatment at the Ho Chi Minh City-based Cho Ray Hospital, according to the local authorities.
Two other policemen were also scratched in their arms allegedly by people attacking them with scissors, the local police said.
Several years ago, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development approved the project which would be built on the land of the three families, but they refused to give up their lands due to the low compensation prices.
In Vietnam, all land is owned by the state and people only get the right to use land. The law allows the government to revoke these rights at any time, usually by paying compensation.
But it often triggers conflicts and sometimes even violence.
A gun battle by farmer Doan Van Vuon’s family in the northern city of Haiphong in January 2012 among other incidents prompted the government to issue a resolution this April that restricts local authorities in taking land from farmers.
It enjoins authorities to ensure farmers’ legitimate interests are protected if their land is taken over for national security and other public purposes.
Thousands of farmers across Vietnam have gathered in front of government buildings in the capital city of Hanoi to demand for justice as local authorities have grabbed their land for very cheap prices for developing industrial and urban projects.
Many said they have no more land for crop cultivation while others claimed that they could not buy land for resettlement with the compensation they received for the expropriated land.
Land petitioners have been inhumanely treated by police forces which often detain them in police stations and beat them before sending them back to their home localities.
Many Vietnamese have been charged for conducting activities against on-duty officials when they tried to protect their land. Many have been imprisoned up to three years.
In 2014, land petitioner Dang Ngoc Viet, 42, a recipient in a land compensation deal in Haiphong city, opened fire on a group of five officials from Thai Binh’s Center for Land Development Fund, killing one and severely injured two others. Viet killed himself a few hours later on the same day.
The shooting resulted from some disagreement between the petitioner and officials in the northern province of Thai Binh, which is adjacent to Haiphong city. Farmer Doan Van Vuon was the first in Vietnam to have opposed land rights abuse by armed resistance.
Hanoi-based human rights activists said that if the single party-ruled maintains its policies on land management, in which the state controls land and gives locals rights to use it only, there would be more similar tragic cases.
More than 70% of prolonged complaint cases reported in Vietnam so far are related to land disputes in which local governments or authorities-backed investors take land from local people at dirt prices for so-called development projects, according to the government report./.
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March 2, 2016
Vietnam Appeal Court Reduces Imprisonment of 15-year-old Boy to 30 Months for Opposing Police in Land Grabbing Case
by Nhan Quyen • [Human Rights], Nguyen Mai Trung Tuan
Handcuffed Nguyen Mai Trung Tuan in court room today [March 2]
By Vu Quoc Ngu, March 02, 2016
The People’s Court in Vietnam’s southern province of Long An on March 2 rejected the appeal of 15-year-old boy Nguyen Mai Trung Tuan, saying the boy is guilty for attacking police with acid when local authorities deployed police and militia to seize his family’s land in mid-April last year.
However, the court reduced his sentence to 30 months in prison. On November 24 last year, the People’s Court in the Long An province’s Thach Hoa district gave him 54 months of imprisonment for intentionally inflicting injury on state officials under Article 104 of the country’s Penal Code.
Similar to the first hearing, eleven lawyers defending the boy insisted in the court room that his client is innocent since the boy’s act was not intentional and was triggered by police violence during the land seizure. The lawyers also said the court used the temporary health tests of the injured policemen which were not carried out according to proper procedures.
The court rejected the lawyers’ defense and imposed the heavy sentence on the boy whose final statement in court is to come back to school to continue his study.
Nearly one hundred of Vietnamese activists from Ho Chi Minh City and other southern provinces came to Long An to attend the open trial, however, they were not allowed to enter the courtroom so they stayed outside and listened through a loudspeaker. Security agents closely monitored the activists and tried to bar them from moving around the court building.
Security forces also detained activist Le Thi Em but released her after the court ended.
The sentence makes Tuan the third member of his family to be jailed in the same land grabbing case. In September last year, his father Nguyen Trung Can and mother Mai Thi Kim Huong were tried and imprisoned for causing public disorder after they opposed local authorities’ seizure of their land seven months ago. The father and mother were sentenced to prison terms of three years and three and half years, respectively.
Also in the same case, ten people from two other families were sentenced to between two and three and half years in prison for opposing the local authorities, in the first hearing in mid September last year.
On April 14, 2015, Long An’s authorities sent numerous policemen and militia to evict the three families, including the four-member family of Can and Huong, out of their land to make way for an embankment project. However, they met strong objection from the land owners who have not agreed to the proposed compensation of VND300,000 per square meter.
According to state-run newspapers, the farmers used gas cylinder and knifes to protect their land, and threw acid at policemen, burning 15 officers, one of officer had to seek treatment at the Ho Chi Minh City-based Cho Ray Hospital, according to the local authorities.
Two other policemen were also scratched in their arms allegedly by people attacking them with scissors, the local police said.
Several years ago, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development approved the project which would be built on the land of the three families, but they refused to give up their lands due to the low compensation prices.
In Vietnam, all land is owned by the state and people only get the right to use land. The law allows the government to revoke these rights at any time, usually by paying compensation.
But it often triggers conflicts and sometimes even violence.
A gun battle by farmer Doan Van Vuon’s family in the northern city of Haiphong in January 2012 among other incidents prompted the government to issue a resolution this April that restricts local authorities in taking land from farmers.
It enjoins authorities to ensure farmers’ legitimate interests are protected if their land is taken over for national security and other public purposes.
Thousands of farmers across Vietnam have gathered in front of government buildings in the capital city of Hanoi to demand for justice as local authorities have grabbed their land for very cheap prices for developing industrial and urban projects.
Many said they have no more land for crop cultivation while others claimed that they could not buy land for resettlement with the compensation they received for the expropriated land.
Land petitioners have been inhumanely treated by police forces which often detain them in police stations and beat them before sending them back to their home localities.
Many Vietnamese have been charged for conducting activities against on-duty officials when they tried to protect their land. Many have been imprisoned up to three years.
In 2014, land petitioner Dang Ngoc Viet, 42, a recipient in a land compensation deal in Haiphong city, opened fire on a group of five officials from Thai Binh’s Center for Land Development Fund, killing one and severely injured two others. Viet killed himself a few hours later on the same day.
The shooting resulted from some disagreement between the petitioner and officials in the northern province of Thai Binh, which is adjacent to Haiphong city. Farmer Doan Van Vuon was the first in Vietnam to have opposed land rights abuse by armed resistance.
Hanoi-based human rights activists said that if the single party-ruled maintains its policies on land management, in which the state controls land and gives locals rights to use it only, there would be more similar tragic cases.
More than 70% of prolonged complaint cases reported in Vietnam so far are related to land disputes in which local governments or authorities-backed investors take land from local people at dirt prices for so-called development projects, according to the government report./.