Pastor arrested, rights protesters beaten in Vietnam

UN voices alarm at ongoing attacks against activists.

Phnom Penh:  At least one person was reported beaten Dec. 14 while protesting outside the Hanoi trial of rights defender Nguyen Viet Dung, while a Protestant minister who is a prominent dissident was arrested in a separate incident in Thanh Hoa province.

"Police blocked the road leading to the court [and] activists reported that one was beaten by thugs," Vu Quoc Ngu of Defend the Defenders told ucanews.com.

Dung was sentenced to 15 months in prison, Vu said. He was arrested in May on charges of disturbing public order after participating in a mass-coordinated protest movement against a Hanoi tree-removal plan.

The minister, the Rev. Nguyen Trung Ton, is being held incommunicado, said Vu. According to a statement on Defend the Defenders website, Ton has been a "regular subject of local police's harassment."

The attacks are just the latest in a spate of assaults carried out by police, masked security guards and government-affiliated "thugs."

On Dec. 11, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a statement urging "the government of Vietnam to take urgent measures to ensure the security of all human rights defenders and to undertake prompt, thorough and impartial investigations of all the reported incidents involving human rights defenders."

The United Nations said it was "alarmed at the recent spate of violent attacks," which included the Dec. 6 beating of Nguyen Van Dai, a prominent Christian human rights lawyer.

Nguyen was assaulted after leaving a freedom of religion forum in Nghe An province with Catholic activists.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide said Nguyen and three colleagues were stopped by 20 police officers, who "proceeded to confront them and beat them with wooden sticks, striking their shoulders and thighs."

Nguyen was then driven 20 kilometers away, assaulted further, robbed of his possessions and "pushed into the cold sea." In photos published on the human rights portal "Vietnam Right Now", Nguyen can be seen bleeding badly from the head and soaked.

Rights workers, bloggers, journalists and religious activists have faced ongoing recrimination by Hanoi, which has sought to stem public signs of unrest or displeasure.

Source: UCAN