Ngoc Nhi Nguyen (Danlambao) - After the morning session, at the midday adjournment, the solicitors informed us that the prosecutors were allowed to call 32 witnesses, while the defendants were allowed only TWO witnesses (while in fact there were 17 people (mostly Hoa Hao Buddhist practitioners) present at the scene on the 11th February and were actually arrested at the same time as the 3 accused but were later released). Apparently 14 out of the 17 witnesses for the defendants were all present outside the Court but were not allowed to go in, were in fact beaten up and sent home by the police.
When the defendants' solicitors complained that this was not fair and requested that the hearing be stopped until those witnesses were allowed in Court, the Judges decided against this and ordered the solicitors to continue.
It is worth noting that the way the police orchestrated the scene of the arrest, it was supposed to be an "incidental" arrest where 2 people on 2 motorbikes were stopped for allegedly traveling in 3 (the 3rd person was never found and identity unknown, in fact probably never existed). Following this, the police alleged that Bui Thi Minh Hang and Nguyen Thi Thuy Quynh were yelling and swearing loudly causing over 700 local people to come out to watch, and to cause traffic backing up for a long time (!!) which constituted a case of "disturbing public order".
However, if the whole thing was truly incidental and not staged, how was it possible to have more than 700 locals as well as the television crew be present so quickly at the scene? Dong Thap television later showed the interviews of "witnesses" amongst these "locals" whom all spoke the same thing, obviously from a prepared scripts, saying damning (and untrue) things about the 3 accused. Those so called "witnesses" were all saying bad things about the Hoa Hao Buddhists (which iss very unusual for Dong Thap as most of the residents there practice Hoa Hao Buddhism) and praising the police greatly (which is again very unusual as most Vietnamese people are either very scared of the police or hate their guts!). Such unusual behaviors from these "local witnesses" made it very likely that they were all "actors" and "actresses" hired and prepared before hand by the police.
Most likely the 32 prosecuting witnesses called today at the trial were those mentioned above. They in fact would not have witnessed much but rather recited a prepared script, just so the Judges have excuses to handout the sentences they want.
In the police report, there was a mention of 5 yellow banners, supposedly with very anti government, anti police slogans, used to condemn the 3 defendants. Yet those were allegedly confiscated by the police and destroyed, well before the case was to come to Court.
On a separate note, Mr Nguyen Van Minh' s parents were not allowed to go inside to hear the trial of their own son. His mother was so upset she fainted outside the Court. A friend of Mrs Bui Thi Minh Hang, Ms Tran Ngoc Anh was hit on the head and had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance.
It is very obvious to anyone following the case from the beginning, to see that the whole thing was a set up, by the government and carried out by the police, with the sole aim of arresting and imprisoning the most active of the activists: Mrs Bui Thi Minh Hang, when she and her friends were trying their best to help the Hoa Hao Buddhists, who had been under police suppression and brutality for a long time.
