This is a report on the violent government attack against Dong Tam village (near Hanoi, Vietnam) on January 9, 2020. The attack was the culmination of a long-running land dispute and resulted in the death of the village leader, three police officers, and the arrest of more than two dozen villagers.
On September 7, 2020, these villagers were brought to preliminary trial in Hanoi, where they were handed two death sentences, one life sentence, and more than 80 years of prison.
This report reaches the conclusion that this event is the largest peacetime land dispute in Vietnam in terms of troop deployment, public awareness, and deaths; it also hightlights concerns about police brutality, abuse of power, and the contradictory concept of the “people’s ownership of land” in Vietnam.
You can download the full report (PDF) by clicking here.
(English version: Page 2 – 65 | Vietnamese version: Page 66 – 126)
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Pham Doan Trang is a Vietnamese journalist and democracy activist. After graduating from Hanoi Foreign Trade University in 2001 with a degree in International Economics, she worked in print media, TV production, and publishing. She is now working as an editor for Luat Khoa, a Vietnamese magazine that focuses on political and legal issues in Vietnam.
Trang is the author and co-author of many books, including “Anh Ba Sam”, “From Facebook down to the Street”, “An Overview of the Marine Life Disaster in Vietnam” (2016), “A Handbook of Non-violent Resistance Techniques”, “Politics for the Common People” (2017), “Learning Public Policy through the Issue of Special Economic Zones” (2018), and “Politics of a Police State” (2019).
Will Nguyen is a writer and Vietnamese democracy activist. He works with civil society groups in the Asia-Pacific region, training activists, translating dissident works and news stories, and rallying international support in pursuit of political reform in Vietnam.
He graduated from Yale University in 2008 with a Bachelor’s in East Asian Studies, and in 2018, after completing his Master in Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, was arrested and briefly imprisoned in Vietnam for his role in nationwide protests.
