CORRESPONDENCE - 85A COMBINED REPORTS OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN VIETNAM 2012

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complaints about land compensation, and clearance made up almost 80% of the total cases, and up to 50% of them were legitimate .21 Thousands of landless farmers who do not know where to get help flocked to Hanoi, Saigon and other major metropolises across the country to claim compensation for land seized by authorities for `development purposes.' They stage long - running protests outside public buildings, such as the National Assembly in Hanoi or other local government offices, to denounce corruption and injustice toward dispossessed farmers, and ask for fair compensation. This tragic situation persists and gets worse through the years. Despite their reasonable complaints, the victims of land injustice hardly ever received decent settlement; instead they were subject to retaliation and violent suppression, causing injuries and sometimes death as in the case of Mr Nguyen Van Hung in Bac Giang province on 26 January 2012. Several deeply resenting victims had to commit suicide to expose their miseries at the unjust treatment, such as engineer Phan Thanh Son who burned himself on 18 February 2011 in front of the Da Nang People's Committee office to protest the state's confiscation of his land in exchange for an improper compensation. Others were pushed to using violence to defend justice as in the case of Ky Loi village of Ky Anh district of Ha Tinh province people who held 5 police agents as hostages to deal with the authorities' threatening demand to build a deep water port, proposed by a Taiwanese company in March 2011. Most recently, the serious case of Mr. Doan Van Vuon's family in Tien Lang district of Hai Phong city using 21 Tien Phong (The Vanguard), "Khieu nai, to cao dung ve dat dai chiem tai 50W, http://www.tienphong.vn/Thoi-Su/562637/Khieu-nai- to-cao-d u ng- ve -dat -d a i -ch iem- toi- 50 -tpp. html (accessed 29/12/2011). Vietnam Human Rights Network * Annual Report 2011 weapons to cause injuries to several police agents on 5 January 2012 when they came to carry out the forced confiscation of land that they had worked very hard for nearly 20 years to build up, including the sacrifice of an eight - year -old daughter's life. Meanwhile human rights activists seeking to defend the victims of land injustice have suffered from increased threats, arrest, and imprisonment for supposedly `inciting people to demonstrate and creating public unrest.' Such was the case of activists working for the interest of victims of land injustice like Ho Thi Bich Khuong of Nghe An, sentenced on 29 December 2011 for 5 years in prison and 3 years under house arrest allegedly for her "anti -state propaganda" against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam; Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Cuong and his son Nguyen Ngoc Tuong Thi in Dong Nai province, sentenced on 21 October 2011 for 7 and 5 years in prison respectively for the same alleged crime. They were actually working to represent the peasants involved in land fights against local government. On 30 May 2011, the people's court of Ben Tre province gave the following sentences to seven activists who had tried to defend victims of land injustice: Mrs. Tran Thi Thuy, 8 years in prison; Mr. Pham Van Thong, 7 years in prison; Pastor Duong Kim Khai, 6 years in prison; Mr. Cao Van Tinh, 5 years in prison; and 2 years in prison each for Mr. Nguyen Chi Thanh, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Van, and Mrs. Pham Ngoc Hoa. Totally, nearly 60 years of imprisonment were given to seven activists for their alleged crime of "plotting to overthrow the people's government" while in actuality they were only striving to help victims of land injustice. In addition to these sentences, the Vietnamese communist authorities also arrested other victims of land injustice activists, such as Mrs. Le Thi Ngoc Da in Long An on 27 April 2011 and Mr. Le Thanh Tung in Hanoi on 01 December 2011. 26