Catholic World News News Feature

Report from Vietnam: after violent police raid, battered Catholics face prosecution July 30, 2009

[Sister Emily Nguyen reports from Vietnam's Vinh diocese]

Vietnamese police have announced that seven Catholics who were detained after the violent police raid at Tam Toa church will have to face criminal charges.

At the news conference held at Hanoi’s office of the Ministry of Information and Communications on Wednesday, July 28, Major General Hoang Cong Tu-- Deputy General Director of the general security department under the Ministry of Public Security--announced the decision of the Vietnam government to prosecute the seven Catholic, who have been detained without bail.

The Diocese of Vinh immediately denounced the decision. Father Anthony Pham Dinh Phung, the chief secretary t the bishop's office, disclosed that the Vietnam government had called to ask Vinh's Catholic leaders to help calm the public outrage over police misconduct. Now the tide is turning and the authorities are going to prosecute the arrested Catholics. “We will not calm down until they release the seven people they arrested,” the priest said.

On July 20, 2009 police in Quang Binh province launched a surprise attack on the defenseless parishioners of Tam Toa-- a struggling parish of the diocese of Vinh in Central Vietnam-- when these Catholics were erecting a makeshift tent as a temporary place for worship services. The assault resulted in hundreds being injured, and 18 were taken away in police vehicles; 11 Catholics were soon released but 7 are still behind bars.

Charges filed by police in Dong Hoi city, Quang Binh province, had accused the group of seven of committing “counter-revolutionary” crimes, violating state policies on Americans’ War Crimes Memorial Sites, disturbing public order, and attacking officials on duty. If convicted they would face severe punishment.

The police spokesman said that the accused Catholics “confessed their guilt and pleaded for clemency,” noting that most of them are Quang Binh residents. “They also acknowledged several others, including Father Le Thanh Hong and Vo Thi Thu Thuy, 52, who were involved in the illegal building of a house on the site,” Vietnam Net, a state-run media outlet, reported, quoting Tu.

Father Le Thanh Hong, the parish priest of Tam Toa, has been accused in state media reports of inciting the arrested Catholics, who have been portrayed by state media as leaders deceiving other Catholics into “illegal building a house on the site.” However not all of the Catholics who were arrested were even members of his parish; in fact most were handymen from other nearby parishes who had come to the site to help construct the tent.

Sister Marie Tan of the Cross Lovers congregation of Huong Phuong in Quang Binh province-- who was herself was beaten brutally in the police raid, and was being taken away when the crowd managed to rescue her from the police van-- revealed that “the victims were grabbed at random during the chaos.” She reported that police had fired tear gas into the crowd of Catholics before jumping in to beat people, and to make 18 arrests at random.

Local sources have reported that on Wednesday night, gangs acting on the police’s behest roamed the streets yelling anti-Catholic slogans, suggesting the death of Father Hong. The priest's whereabouts remains unknown. He and other Catholics in Dong Hoi had to flee the city in search for their safety.

Doctors caring for Father Peter Nguyen The Binh-- who was beaten into a coma, then dropped from the second floor of a hospital in Dong Hoi-- said on Wednesday that he had escaped death but his condition would need further treatment. Father Paul Nguyen Dinh, who suffered broken ribs and head injuries, seems to be in better shape but still in need of medical treatments in Xa Doai hospital.

Although Tu denied that these two priests had been beaten, the Vinh diocese released photos showing the serious injuries to the priests.