From Vietnam Right Now
Just one week after letting anti-China protests go forward in Hanoi and Saigon, and after protests in the provinces turned into riots hitting foreign manufacturers, the Vietnamese government yesterday reversed course and deployed massive forces to suppress a second weekend of protests arresting several bloggers.
Policemen ask people to leave a street near to the Chinese embassy in Hanoi on May 18, 2014. A call for further anti-China protests appeared to have fizzled in the capital, with authorities deploying heavy security around the Chinese embassy and other suspected protest sites. (Photo: HOANG DINH NAM/AFP/Getty Images)
Among those still detained are Gió Lang Thang, who had reported on the land grab situation in Hanoi, and Huynh Ngoc Hieu, the son of Huynh Ngoc Tuan and brother of Huynh Thuc Vy, two recipients of Human Rights Watch‘s Hellman-Hammett grant for persecuted writers.
Streets near the Chinese Embassy and Hanoi and the Chinese Consulate General in Saigon were closed and dozens of police manning the barricades. Residents of Saigon’s District 1 near the Consulate General were warned not to come out during the planned protest times.
On Friday, Vietnam’s prime minister sent out mass text messages to every mobile phone in the country, warning that he has ordered the police and local governments to “implement all synchronous measures, absolute not allow illegal demonstrations, loss of security, order, social safety.”
Read the full story from Vietnam Right Now.
