HANOI: Vietnamese police detained scores of people taking part in an anti-China rally in Hanoi on Sunday in defiance of a government order to end a string of demonstrations that has stretched three months and put authorities on edge.
One witness said plainclothes police forced around 40 demonstrators onto two public buses and drove them away within minutes of the start of the demonstration. A blogger who has chronicled the demonstrations and has contacts among the regular protesters said at least one bus left with 19 people aboard.
It was the 11th anti-China rally in an unprecedented series of public protests that have taken place nearly every on Sunday since early June against what Vietnamese see as China’s violations of their country’s sovereignty in the South China Sea.
”We’re very concerned that protesters were arrested by the police and call for their immediate release,” said Phil Robertson, deputy head for Asia of Human Rights Watch.The anti-China demonstrations started after the Vietnamese government made public a case in late May in which it said Chinese patrol ships harassed a Vietnamese seismic survey ship operating in Vietnamese waters.
The Hanoi government notice on Thursday said they were interfering with diplomatic efforts in the dispute with China. (PTI)