This afternoon, the 25th May 2014, Ms Tran Thi Nga went to visit blogger Nguyen Tuong Thuy, who recently went to the US to deliver a speech on human rights at the White House. A friend, Mr Phong, gave her and her 2 children (Phu and Tai, aged 2 and 4) a ride home on the back of his motorbike. As they got to District Thanh Tri, Ha Noi, they were set upon by a group of 5 undercover policemen pretending to be street gang members, carrying metal tubes as weapon.
Ms Nga was hit first on her left wrist which caused immediate swelling and a huge bruise, a sign that the underlying bone may be broken. She panicked and ran screaming "Robbery, robbery" into a nearby shop selling bycicle parts. The shop owner went to help her so the men ran back out. Fearful for her 2 young children, Ms Nga ran back out to the street to be with Phu and Tai. Immediately the men returned and started to hit her again, this time they tried to hit her legs and her back. She ran into the front of the Electrical Mechanical Irritation Company nearby and was helped by two workers there. The men left but as soon as the two workers went back to work and Ms Nga was busy on the phone calling her friends for help, they returned to beat her up the 3rd time. This time one man managed to hit her really hard on the right knee. The knee become immediately swollen and looked deformed. It was feared that the patella may have been shattered.
Ms Tran Thi Nga was taken by ambulance to the Nong Nghiep Hospital in Thanh Tri District. The ambulance officers strapped up her arm and leg and the doctors were doing CT scans to check the conditions of her bones and joints.
Ms Nga is a member of the Women for Human Rights Association of Viet Nam. She participates in many social and charitable projects. She is a land right activist who travels everywhere supporting and guiding the petitioners with their quests to regain their lands, which were forcefully taken by the local government. She works with the Hoa Hao Buddhist Association, whose members have been harrassed and imprisoned by the communist government. She also attended every march protesting against the Chinese invasion of the Spratly and Paracel archipelagos.
Because of these activities that Ms Nga became a target for police harrassment. The government several times ordered the police to arrest her, confiscate her belongings and beat her up. Just a few days ago, she received several death threats and there were leaflets distributed in front of her home, falsely accused her of adultery and threatened to beat both her and her children up. When she reported these incidents to the police, they gave her the cold shoulder and appeared very reluctant to help. In fact, the police did nothing to protect her and her young boys.
It is not at all acceptable to still have such blatantly cruel treatments of women in this day and age. We need to speak up against this type of citizen abuse. We can not accept policemen disguising as gang members going around beating up activists and dissidents like this. This is savage ! Totally inhumane !
We can not stand here and watch police thugs beating up a defenseless woman in front of young kids, so that they can intimidate her into silence and stopping her from fighting for the human rights and democracy of Viet Nam.
We need the whole world to know and to stand up against this. We need to say NO to violence against women !
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