On November 23, Vietnam’s state-controlled media reported that the Supreme People’s Procuracy’s Investigation Agency had decided to probe and temporarily detain suspect Luu Quang Trung to investigate the crime of using torture leading to the death of one person.
Before being arrested, Luu Quang Trung held the rank of lieutenant and was an investigator of the Long Thanh District Police Investigation Agency, Dong Nai Province. He tortured a citizen to death at the police station last March.
A police lieutenant is a grassroots officer with little power but has shown cruelty to the point of abusing the victim to death. This has been a painful situation in the police force for many years. This situation has been covered up by the government apparatus, so once the police commit evil deeds, they will not stop.
Remember, in the meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee on March 19, 2015, the National Assembly’s Standing Committee at that time convened a meeting of the monitoring group “The situation of injustice and mistakes in the application of criminal law, criminal proceedings and compensation for victims of injustice in criminal proceedings, according to the provisions of law.” This meeting publicly reported that, in 3 years (from 2011 to 2014), up to 226 people died while being detained at police stations. This number shows how terrible the level of crimes committed by police officers is.
Those are the statistics announced by the police force itself, and they are only data for 3 years. In reality, with the Party’s decades of rule, along with the brutality of the police, the number will certainly be much higher. What is more frightening is that, after that, especially during the time To Lam was Minister of Public Security, the data and information about those who were abused to death in detention camps were no longer made public.
That is, the Party not only did not deal with those who tortured but also covered them up. The person who proposed this policy was none other than General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong. It was Trong who ignored it, allowing To Lam to violate the law without being exposed to the public.
Now, the case of a police lieutenant being probed for torturing a victim to death can be considered a rare case. What about other cases that were not probed, meaning that the police were allowed to torture people to death? How frightening.
In fact, “being cruel to the people” is a long-term strategy of the Communist Party of Vietnam. They want to spread fear among the people, to make it easier to rule. Usually, when a case of torture occurs, not only the police force tries to cover it up, but the entire judicial system also covers it up.
In 2015, two lawyers, Le Van Luan and Tran Thu Nam, were attacked by a group of thugs because they wanted to seek justice for Do Dang Du – a young man who was tortured to death by the police in Chuong My, Hanoi. As a result, the two lawyers had to give up because of the threats and assaults of the police but disguised as “thugs.”
Although the Communist state press also reported on this assault, it was only with the purpose of trying to prove that the police were innocent or to justify that the state did not agree with the actions of the group of “thugs.” As a result, the political system successfully protected the evil guys and their lawless acts. The police officers continued to be cruel to the people without having to bear any responsibility. That was also the message that the government implicitly sent to the lawyers that they should not pay attention to “other people’s business,” otherwise they would be “punished.”
People are increasingly dissatisfied with the regime – a regime that is corrupt from the top to the bottom. At the top, leaders kill each other to fight for power and gain; at the bottom, officers freely exploit, threaten, and rob people to get rich, and to pay tribute to the top.
A government like that, only by condoning the police to do evil, can it oppress the people, to feel secure “full” and then fight each other for seats.
Thai Ha – Thoibao.de
