Vietnamese police forcibly dispersed an anti-China rally yesterday and arrested at least 10 people, including journalists, after a series of protests over tensions in the South China Sea.
Plainclothes police moved in to detain the demonstrators almost immediately after they gathered within sight of the Chinese embassy in Hanoi, a reporter observed.
An unprecedented series of protests — which are not common in authoritarian Vietnam — have taken place peacefully in Hanoi on the past five weekends over an escalating maritime dispute in the South China Sea.
China and Vietnam have been at loggerheads over the potentially oil-rich Spratly (南沙群島) and Paracel (西沙群島) island groups, which straddle vital commercial shipping lanes and are also claimed in whole or part by Taiwan, Philippines, Brunei and Malaysia.
While Vietnamese authorities -allowed the earlier public protests as a means of expressing displeasure with Beijing, analysts said, they are now reining in the demonstrators after holding talks with China to resolve the dispute.
The arrests came about two weeks before the National Assembly convenes after nationwide one-party elections in May.
The assembly is expected to confirm another five-year term for Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, who is believed to be supported by the powerful security apparatus.
Protesters struggled yesterday morning as the security men led them onto a public bus, which had been on standby, and took them to a police station.
“We did not do anything!” they shouted.
Among those detained was a Vietnamese cameraman for Japan’s NHK television, who his company said was later released. The Associated Press reported that one of its Vietnamese cameramen was held, but freed after questioning.
A Vietnamese working for another foreign news organization was also detained in the round-up, but was later seen leaving the police station, media sources said.
The Committee to Protect Journalists, a US-based watchdog, said it was “troubled” by reports that journalists had been detained. It said they were “being punished for just doing their jobs.”
Police refused to comment, but a witness saw several protesters being released from the station later yesterday.
The first rally last month drew close to 300 people, but after that, the numbers dwindled to about 100. Some protesters felt their actions were “in vain” after China and Vietnam held talks on June 25 in Beijing, one activist said.
At the bilateral meeting, both sides agreed to resolve their territorial disputes peacefully “through negotiations and friendly consultations,” state media from both countries said.
The official Vietnam News said Beijing and Hanoi “also laid stress on the need to steer public opinion in the correct direction.”
That meant Vietnam must rein in the demonstrators, while China should control its media, whose comments have upset Vietnam, said Carl Thayer, a long-time Vietnam analyst based in Australia.
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a
RSS