Nguyen Thi Loan

Likely due to pressure from local authorities, primary school teacher Nguyen Thi Loan was evicted. Ms. Nguyen’s eviction is allegedly a result of her participation in a memorial of soldiers and civilians killed by the army of China during a short war between Vietnam and China that took place during February to March 1979.

On February 17, 2018 Loan and her husband, Trinh Toan, together with several activists, held a small demonstration at the Tran Hung Dao monument in the Ho Chi Minh city’s center to mark the 39th anniversary of the war, in which approximately 60,000 Vietnamese soldiers and civilians were killed by the Chinese army.

Loan said she and her husband have been forced to move from one place to another many times in recent months due to their social activities.

According to an interview with Nguyen Thi Loan by RFA and Tin Mừng Cho Người Nghèo, Loan, Trinh Van Toan, and Vu Thi Thuong Huyen went to Saigon Natre-Dame Cathedral for the mass at 8:35 on June 17, 2018.

Because they arrived late, the church’s security officer asked them to wait outside for the next mass at 9:30. While they were waiting, some of policemen, both in uniforms and plain clothes, came and demanded to check Toan’s bags without any legal order.

Because Toan did not let them check the bags, they beat him until he fainted, while pulling Loan and Huyen into a car. Loan immediately made a phone call for a doctor but was prevented from doing so by police.

They then brought him to the car and transported the three of them to the police station of Ben Nghe subdistrict.

Toan and Loan were put into a separate room, where they were beaten mainly in their heads by many young police officers in green uniforms. When Toan fell down, they used their batons to hit him and even their shoes to step on his head. Toan then fell into an unconscious state.

Meanwhile, they pulled Loan far from him and also attacked her with strong strikes, making her faint after a while.

After waking up and seeing Toan’s head with bumps, bruises, and bleeding, she ordered them to bring him to the hospital, but police did not accept her request. Instead, they called a doctor to simply feel his pulse and check his heart rate.

Around 1:00 pm, taking a chance when most of security forces were focused on another issue outside, Loan carried him outside and asked for help from the others.

After around 20 minutes, an ambulance arrived to take him to hospital. Police pulled Loan back without allowing her to accompany him. They only let her go after the doctor requested it.

At the hospital, because her phone had been confiscated at the police station, she tried twice to borrow a mobile phone and make a phone call, but was prevented from doing so by security forces. All she had at that time was approximately 300.000 VND (around 12 USD).

After being diagnosed with a brain concussion, Toan was admitted to the hospital for a treatment. Loan told the security forces to take responsibility for paying, because his condition was the consequence of their attack, and she also did not have money. However, apart from 1 million VND (around 42 USD) paid before, they refused to pay and disappeared silently soon after that. Loan had to borrow money by taking a motorcycle taxi to a friend’s house.

On June 20, Nguyen Thi Loan posted on Facebook that he came home after being discharged from a Saigon hospital and then went to a Franco-Vietnamese hospital for a second opinion.

At 9:00 pm on June 25, after meeting with some friends, a stranger followed Loan on her way back home, from Hoa Hung Road, Tan Binh District to Thanh Loc Sub-district, District 12, Ho Chi Minh city.

At that moment, she was keeping a sum of money, which was donations from her friends in support of the incident on June 17, 2018. On that day, Trinh Van Toan, her husband, was beaten harshly in a police station because of their participation in demonstrations on June 10.

Police, pretending to be strangers, tried to stop Loan from driving by squeezing themselves closely next to her motorcycle. They brought her to the police station at 10:00.pm. One of the perpetrators left their motorcycle because of the sudden appearance of her husband and the reaction of the surrounding people.

On her Facebook on June 25, a status was posted with a picture with a number and a short sentence: “Vợ tôi bị Công An bắt cóc. Cấp cứu cấp cứu”, which was translated as “My wife was kidnapped by police. Help help”.

On June 26, she continued posting on Facebook to reveal that she was at Thanh Loc sub-district police station after being kidnapping and wished for people to come and help her.

It wasn’t until 1:30 am on June 26 that she was released even though they did not have any reason for detention.