"Destroying state property is also destroying one's own property"

Crowd riot.

During the two days (June 10 and 11), taking advantage of the protests against the National Assembly passing the Draft Law on Special Economic Zones, at two hot spots Phan Ri and Phan Thiet (Binh Thuan), there were large gatherings of people, disturbing public order, and many people even stormed into offices.,Attacked the riot police, burned many cars and motorbikes...

Destroying state property is also destroying one's own property.

Dr. Pham Huy Thong, Permanent Vice Chairman of the Hanoi City Catholic Solidarity Committee, said that the acts of vandalizing government offices, burning government vehicles, and attacking law enforcement officers are actions that are difficult for anyone to accept and support. “Acts of inciting disturbances and destroying state property, whether by the State or religious organizations, including Catholics, are unacceptable and condemn these acts of violence.”

Dr. Pham Huy Thong

According to Dr. Pham Huy Thong, the extremist crowd does not understand that destroying state property is also destroying their own property. This will directly and immediately affect their interests. For example, in Binh Thuan, they destroyed the fire department headquarters and burned fire trucks. If a fire breaks out, where will the fire trucks be to put out the fire for the people?

“Therefore, people should stay calm. There are many channels and ways to express their concerns, such as through petitions or through National Assembly representatives and mass organizations. Doing so will be effective and will not violate the law, such as gathering crowds, inciting disturbances, and destroying property as recently happened,” said Dr. Pham Huy Thong.

Vietnam is still considered a peaceful country with political and social stability, so many investors have invested in Vietnam. Dr. Pham Huy Thong said that the unfortunate images that happened on June 11, although not wanted, also made many foreign companies worried. Some companies were worried that the incident in Binh Duong in 2014 would happen, so they had to use many solutions, some companies had to hang up the slogan "We are a Korean company, we support the Vietnamese people" to hope that the extremist crowd would not enter their company to cause trouble like before.

Up to now, the police have arrested many subjects, prosecuted cases of disturbing public order, destroying property and resisting law enforcement officers in the area to investigate, clarify and handle related subjects, but more or less, the recent extreme and disruptive actions have damaged the image of Vietnam, which is peaceful and stable.

Or the image of workers from some companies in Ho Chi Minh City marching to demand salary increases and reductions in overtime hours, combined with a number of groups of people protesting against the two draft laws at that time, merged into a large stream of people, causing traffic jams, destabilizing security, and also tarnishing the image of the country. “Workers have the right to ask their employers to increase salaries and reduce overtime hours, but in my opinion, they have trade unions, trade unions, they can reflect their opinions to these organizations, certainly with such a large number of opinions, the company owners will have to listen and resolve. There will be many ways to express their opinions, but gathering crowds, inciting disturbances, and disrupting security and order is not advisable.”

Be moderate but firm with extremists

Dr. Pham Huy Thong said that he closely followed the handling of the hot spots by the authorities in the past few days. “Objectively speaking, on June 11, the authorities handled the situation quite peacefully, without violence or tension. Even when the extremist crowd rushed into the office, burned cars, and attacked law enforcement officers, the authorities such as the police were still quite peaceful. This action also prevented the violence from escalating. That is also a solution.”

However, according to Dr. Pham Huy Thong, a moderate but resolute attitude must be taken towards some extremist cases to avoid widespread and prolonged violence. If Binh Thuan were to take resolute action against extremists and troublemakers from June 10, it is very likely that the incident would have stopped and the extremism would not have spread throughout June 11.

“If we are not determined, extreme actions will increase, prolonging the problem and causing more serious consequences. Infrastructure will also be more severely damaged. If we catch and handle violators, it will cause a lot of fatigue and waste time in handling violations,” said Mr. Thong.

People's grievances must be dealt with from the grassroots level, grievances cannot accumulate.

According to Dr. Pham Huy Thong, the suspension of the approval of the Special Economic Zone Law projectis a wise decision, welcomed by the people of the whole country, including Catholics. Above all, it is the Government and the National Assembly's listening to the people and respecting their opinions.

“I think this is also an experience for localities from the grassroots to the central level to learn the lesson of listening to the people. If people's grievances are resolved at the grassroots level, not allowing them to complain for a long time, not allowing grievances to accumulate, then when a bigger problem arises, it is unlikely to erupt,” said Dr. Pham Huy Thong.

Therefore, according to Dr. Pham Huy Thong, to avoid unfortunate incidents similar to the one in Binh Thuan on June 11, first of all, all localities with long-standing complaints from citizens must thoroughly resolve them, so that when an incident occurs, it reduces the accumulation of frustration.

Second, if there are draft laws related to the whole society, the drafting agencies, including the Government and the National Assembly, should seek opinions from experts, legislators, scientists and people from all walks of life so that they can contribute to making the law more complete and it will not cause tension. At that time, reactionary elements will not be able to take advantage of this to incite and incite, because the law has been discussed and commented on by many people, and any questions have been promptly grasped and resolved.

Another issue is propaganda and mobilization. In reality, many people do not know what the law is or what the regulations are, but only listen to one-sided information on many unofficial channels, so they do not understand, or misunderstand, causing unfortunate frustrations.