- Translated by Dương Ánh Hồng
Situation
At 19.30
Tuesday, August 13, 2013, while a group of six young persons were studying
English in an apartment at Gieng Mut Alley, Bach Mai District, Hanoi, the
landlord called Tran Quang Trung, a tenant, asking him to open the door. Right
after that, two strangers stormed into the house. One of them strangled Trung’s
neck whereas the other snatched the cell phone out of his hand.
Later there
were about twenty persons looking like plainclothes civil defenders and police
officers burst into the house, going upstairs, checking ID cards, and demanding
the youth group to put their cell phones on the table. There was only one
person in police uniform. They brought three camcorders, pointing them at the
young people and continuously recorded their images.
Thuy Linh, a
young girl of the class, asked those officers to show their ID cards and stop
filming, or else they would be sued for illegally raiding the citizen’s house.
Nevertheless, no one of them showed their ID cards. When Ho Duc Thanh, another
young person, withdrew his cell phone and intended to call his friend, an
officer screamed out, “I am a civil defense officer and I am here to check your
residence card. Sit still!” Since Thanh did not “sit still” as required, this
person snatched his cell phone, pushing him and making a piece of glass in the
house broken.
At 20.30, the
youth group was escorted to the police station of Truong Dinh ward, where all
detainees’ cell phones and laptops were sealed off, as said, “for temporary
confiscation and would be returned after investigation”. Each cell phone and
laptop was separately sealed off and had the owner’ signature on it.
As requested
by a plainclothes officer, a policeman took the property confiscation minutes
which included deliverer, receiver and witness. However, the detainees totally
did not know what was written in the minutes. They even did not sign and keep
any copy of the minutes.
Afterwards,
all the laptops, cell phones and minutes (included signature of police and
witness of the police side only, not detainees’ signature) were taken away. The
youth group was separated for interrogation. Some were escorted to Hai Ba Trung
District, some in custody in Truong Dinh District. The interrogation mainly
focused on questions as follows: how their personal record was, the reason why
they got to know the English class, how long they had been participating in the
class, who organized the class, who designed the program, whether the program
was related to politics/laws or not, whether they joined in any political
organization or not, whether they know Mr. A / Ms. B or not…
The young
persons were finally released. Yet, some laptops and cell phones were still
kept by the police.
Question
The question
is: Is there anything wrong with the public authority body’s action? (assuming
that they belong to a public authority body).
The answer
is: This is a typical case of “arbitrary arrest and detention”.
Arbitrary
arrest and detention are the arrest or detention of an individual without any
criminal evidence, and/or the arrest or detention in which there is no proper
due legal process.
The behavior
that a group of people calling themselves “police” whereas there was only one
person in police uniform and no one showed ID card raided the house at night
and escorted the young persons to the police station without any proof or even
an arrest warrant is exactly a typical case of “arbitrary arrest and
detention”.
As pursuant
to Article 80 of the Criminal Procedure Code:
- “An arrest
warrant must be clearly inscribed with the date, full name and post of the
warrant issuers, the full name, address of the arrestee and the reason for the
arrest. Arrest warrants must be signed by the issuers and stamped.
- “The executors of arrest warrants must read the warrants, explain the warrants, rights and obligations of the arrestees, and make minutes of the arrests.”
- “It is forbidden to arrest persons at night, except for cases of urgent arrest, arrest of offenders red-handed or arrest of wanted persons.”
For all the
above-mentioned reasons, it is exactly “arbitrary arrest and detention”, isn’t
it?
Other wrongdoings made by the police
officers
In the
incident of arbitrary arrest and detention in the evening of August 13, the
police officers violated Article 31 of the Civil Law in terms of “the right of
an individual with respect to his/her picture” when using camcorder to record
images of the young persons. An individual has rights with respect to his/her
own picture. The use of a picture of an individual must have the consent of
such person.
With
reference to the previous article (Taking Police’s Photographs), we got to know
that the citizen has the right to take photographs of a public authority; but
the opposite is not true, or a public authority is not allowed to take
photographs of the citizen.
In this
story, ironically, the police abused their position and power to record
personal images of citizens.
Furthermore,
the policemen infringed Article 142, 143 and 145 of the Criminal Procedure Code
when they raided and confiscated the young persons’ properties without an
arrest warrant or even a prosecution decision. (The legal procedure is: “a
prosecution” must be followed by “a criminal case”, and a “criminal case” must
be followed by the action of confiscating properties which is “evidence
relevant to the criminal case”).
In addition,
there is a sign of the police officers’ violating Article 124 of the Penal Code
as regards “infringement upon citizens’ places of residence”. Indeed, they
illegally raided the citizen’s house and abused their position and power to
contravene the law in an organized manner, which shall be subject to a sentence
of between one to three years of imprisonment.
