Tension between Vietnamese Catholics and the atheist government has boiled over again on the news that six Catholic defendants have been deprived of their rights to a lawyer and there are serious flaws in the trial's proceedings. The Peace and Justice Commission of the Episcopal Conference derides the trial as baseless and unlawful.
Using a very strong language, in his letter to leaders of the Vietnamese government, Bishop Paul Nguyen Thai Hop, president of the newly born commission, urgently requests the delay of the trial scheduled on Oct. 27 due to numerous issues that need to be clarified, lamenting that so much violence has been employed by the government during the process of resolving the conflict.
In the era of open markets, land values have increased at a dizzying rate. As values of civil properties being reassessed, their economic potentials turn out to be so great that the authorities must find ways to seize them at a very low compensation rate and later resell them at a much higher rate for personal gains. Con Dau is a typical case.
“Why the local government has set the compensation rate so low at 350,000.00 VN dong (an equivalence of 20 US dollars) per square meter for residential land?” asks the prelate, addressing directly the core of the issue.
With the exceptions of state projects, and national security projects, Vietnam land laws do require an acceptable "reasonable" compensation rate for lands to be acquired compulsorily. But Bishop Paul Nguyen points out that “Sun Investment Corporation is a private company, neither carrying out any state projects nor belonging to any national security projects.”
The Vietnamese government has maintained that “all land belongs to the people and is managed by the State on behalf of the people”, and has built its land laws on that principle. But even so, “Whether the decision of the local authorities of Da Nang to seize Con Dau parishioners’ properties in order to sell them to the Sun Investment Corporation for building an eco-tourist travelling plan is in accordance with Article 40 of the 2003 Land Law, and with Decree 84/2007/ND-CP as of May 25, 2007 is questionable,” writes the prelate.
Challenging the real motives of the local authorities in this incident, the prelate asks “Why the government is pushing the peaceful Con Dau parishioners into current tragic situation, causing 1 death, many arrests, others facing total loss of properties and dozens fleeing to another country seeking asylum, when the government's duties are supposedly to protect the rights of the citizens, to stabilize their lives and their welfare?”
Also “Why did Da Nang authorities had to use excessive forces causing unsettling and discontentment among the people?”
To conclude his letter, the prelate requests the delay of the trial until local authorities can answer questions that he has put forward.
In the latest development, attorney Cu Huy Ha Vu denounced the People's Court of Cam Le of seriously violating the criminal court proceedings as the six Catholic defendants have been deprived of their rights to access to a lawyer.
Another Kangaroo trial in which the defending lawyers retained by the defendants have been denied right to defend their clients in court has been the focus of intense discussion as much in Vietnam as it is abroad for its one of a kind notoriety.
Using a very strong language, in his letter to leaders of the Vietnamese government, Bishop Paul Nguyen Thai Hop, president of the newly born commission, urgently requests the delay of the trial scheduled on Oct. 27 due to numerous issues that need to be clarified, lamenting that so much violence has been employed by the government during the process of resolving the conflict.
In the era of open markets, land values have increased at a dizzying rate. As values of civil properties being reassessed, their economic potentials turn out to be so great that the authorities must find ways to seize them at a very low compensation rate and later resell them at a much higher rate for personal gains. Con Dau is a typical case.
“Why the local government has set the compensation rate so low at 350,000.00 VN dong (an equivalence of 20 US dollars) per square meter for residential land?” asks the prelate, addressing directly the core of the issue.
With the exceptions of state projects, and national security projects, Vietnam land laws do require an acceptable "reasonable" compensation rate for lands to be acquired compulsorily. But Bishop Paul Nguyen points out that “Sun Investment Corporation is a private company, neither carrying out any state projects nor belonging to any national security projects.”
The Vietnamese government has maintained that “all land belongs to the people and is managed by the State on behalf of the people”, and has built its land laws on that principle. But even so, “Whether the decision of the local authorities of Da Nang to seize Con Dau parishioners’ properties in order to sell them to the Sun Investment Corporation for building an eco-tourist travelling plan is in accordance with Article 40 of the 2003 Land Law, and with Decree 84/2007/ND-CP as of May 25, 2007 is questionable,” writes the prelate.
Challenging the real motives of the local authorities in this incident, the prelate asks “Why the government is pushing the peaceful Con Dau parishioners into current tragic situation, causing 1 death, many arrests, others facing total loss of properties and dozens fleeing to another country seeking asylum, when the government's duties are supposedly to protect the rights of the citizens, to stabilize their lives and their welfare?”
Also “Why did Da Nang authorities had to use excessive forces causing unsettling and discontentment among the people?”
To conclude his letter, the prelate requests the delay of the trial until local authorities can answer questions that he has put forward.
In the latest development, attorney Cu Huy Ha Vu denounced the People's Court of Cam Le of seriously violating the criminal court proceedings as the six Catholic defendants have been deprived of their rights to access to a lawyer.
Another Kangaroo trial in which the defending lawyers retained by the defendants have been denied right to defend their clients in court has been the focus of intense discussion as much in Vietnam as it is abroad for its one of a kind notoriety.