Thach Rine

VOA reported that as a Khmer Krom Protestant, Thach Rine had been a target of police surveillance and harassment for some time, and that “they have been waiting for the right excuse to arrest him.” 

The pressure was stepped up after he recorded himself reading the UN Covenant on the Rights of Indigenous People and posted that on Facebook.

The police also stopped him in the streets when he was taking his grandchild to school. They later went to his house to confiscate t-shirts printed with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) logo and other Khmer Krom shirts and 150 copies of the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (DRIP).

On June 25, 2021, Thach Rine was detained and interrogated for sharing an animated image of Ho Chi Minh on his Facebook. Some observers believed he was detained because he wore a T-shirt with the SDG logo.

Most state media, however, emphasized that Rine was arrested for falsifying the history of the territory of southwestern Vietnam. The debates between the origin and history of the territory of southwestern Vietnam have always been a contentious issue between the Vietnam authorities and Khmer Krom nationalists. This leads to the question of whether Khmer Krom should be granted the status of indigenous population and enjoy relevant incentives.

Thach Rine was arrested on Octobe 14, 2021, at his home, wuthout an arrest warrant.

After being held for approximately three months in Tra Cu district, on January 24, 2022, Thach Rine was sentenced to six months in prison in a closed-door trial by the provincial court of Tra Vinh province without legal representation or the presence of his relatives.

He was imprisoned in a facility far from his hometown and released on April 13, 2022.