Vietnamese Central Highlands Indigenous Environmentalist Kidnapped by Local Police

Ms. H Buăn Bdap from Dak Lak, who was detained by local police on Aug 24

By Vu Quoc Ngu, August 25, 2016

Police in Vietnam’s Central Highlands province of Dak Lak on August 24 kidnapped Ms. H Buanbdap, a local environmentalist, for interrogation about her postings on her Facebook page, local activists reported.

On Wednesday, police officers Truong Van Phung and Hung in Ea Bhok commune, Cu Kuin district detained Ms. H Buanbdap, 27, at the local police station to question her about recent her Facebook shares on the environmental catastrophe in the country’s central coastal region caused by discharge of toxic industrial waste by the Taiwanese Formosa steel plant located in the central province of Ha Tinh.

When her family came to the communal police station to ask for her release, the local authorities denied they were holding her. Her family and neighbors reportedly stayed in the local government building to wait for her release.

Her Facebook page reportedly came under the control of the local police.

After interrogating and insulting her over two days and one night, the police in Ea Bhok commune released Ms. H Buanbdap in the late afternoon of August 25, said Mrs. Tran Thi Hong, a member of the unsanctioned Vietnam Women for Human Rights.

Ms. H Buanbdap is from Ede ethnic minority in the Central Highlands where many indigenous tribes have been under constant harassment of the communist government.

After taking over the Saigon regime in 1975, the communist government has enforced hardline policies in its governance of indigenous people in the Central Highlands. Government officials have seized land of local tribes and destroyed forest, leaving few options for livelihood of indigenous people.

Mrs. Hong, who has also been under constant harassment by authorities in the neighbor province of Gia Lai, said Vietnam’s security forces maintain close surveillance over ethnic minorities and suppress any individuals advocating for human rights and land rights.

Many Christian pastors and social activists have been charged with “undermining national unity policy” under Article 87 of the country’s Penal Code, said Mrs. Hong, whose husband is imprisoned Protestant pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh.

The arrest of Ms. H Buanbdap was made one day after the People’s Court in the central province of Khanh Hoa sentenced two online activist Nguyen Huu Quoc Duy and Nguyen Huu Thien An to three and two years in jail, respectively, for their peaceful online activities. The two were found guilty of conducting anti-state propaganda under Article 88 of the Penal Code.

Vietnam has little tolerance for government critics. The communist nations have used a number of controversial provisions in the Penal Code to silence local political dissidents, social activists and human rights defenders.

Hanoi has also deployed police officers and plainclothes agents to assault local activists, causing serious injuries for their victims.