Vietnam police arrest 8 people during violent protest

By RFA Vietnamese2024.11.18

Read more on this topic in Vietnamese.

Police in Vietnam have arrested eight people – including five members of the same family – after violent clashes during an attempt to build a road in An Giang province.

The project requires the relocation of 641 households. Six of the families have refused to move.

On Monday morning, according to the An Giang news site, police were called to help protect workers trying to upgrade the road to Kien Giang province.

Eight people were accused of blocking the area with excavators and attacking police and soldiers with petrol bombs and other weapons. Five law enforcers were injured, according to the news report, although it did not show pictures of injuries or alleged damage to machinery at the construction site.

The police arrested Le Thi Ngoc Nhan, her husband Le Van Dien, along with their two sons Le Phuoc Hoang and Le Phuoc Sang, and nephew Nguyen Van Loc.

Three other residents were arrested, Le Cong Triet, Nguyen Thi Bich Thuy and Le Thi Thuong.

One photo shows Le Phuoc Hoang holding a lit Molotov cocktail on a rooftop, while another shows him wearing a bloody shirt.

Radio Free Asia was unable to verify the information published by state media.

Land disputes have become common in Vietnam in recent years, as incomes and land values have risen and also as a result of authorities promoting cash-crops plantations and encouraging people to move to the countryside to work on them.

RFA called Tinh Bien town police to ask for more information about the incident but the person who answered the telephone asked the reporter to come to the agency’s headquarters to get information.

According to the An Giang news site, in 2019, the district government offered to pay Ms. Nhan’s family the equivalent of US$10,500 for just over 120 square meters of land they needed for the road project. The family complained but were offered only a tiny increase in compensation in 2021.

The family then petitioned the central government but were told the complaint was not valid.

Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.