Reported by the villagers of Ea Bhok
Dozens of mobile police with batons, shields and dogs were sent against a protest that was largely made up of women. Seven people were injured and twelve were arrested.
On 20 April 2023 people from Ea Bhok commune stood in the way of a scheme to release waste water into Ea Mta lake. They were met with batons and electric whips.
Where Ea Bhok village, Ea Bhok commune, Cư Kuin district, Dak Lak province
When 20 April 2023
Injured Seven, three taken to emergency care
Arrested Twelve, released the same day
Who was affected
The protesters were villagers from Ea Mta and Ea Bhok, many of them women. They objected to a water-release system that would put waste water into Ea Mta lake, where they expected it to mix with rain water and bring pollution and flooding to the land around it.
The government sent dozens of mobile police, with batons, shields and dogs.
What the protesters described
The mobile police used batons and electric whips to attack us. They bashed and injured seven people. Three had to go to emergency, for head, mouth, ear and shoulder injuries.
In their account a pregnant woman was pushed to the ground; another woman’s shoulder was broken; one person fainted after being struck with an electric whip; and a man who had been pushed down was kicked in the head, bleeding from his ears and his teeth.
Twelve people were taken to the police office. They were released the same day, after signing written pledges not to protest against the project again, on pain of imprisonment. The three admitted to emergency care returned home on 24 April.
This has happened here before
This was the third attempt to carry the scheme through at Ea Mta. The community had already complained formally to the district and the provincial authorities. What those complaints produced, the villagers say, were prison sentences.
What we are reporting, and what we are not
The injuries, the arrests and the pledges are as the protesters and their families described them to us. We have no hospital records, no charge sheets and no official account of the day; the authorities have published none. The figures here are the villagers’ own count.
Why it matters
Waste from Vietnamese cities is put into highland water, and the people who live beside that water are told in writing that objecting to it is a crime. The villagers of Ea Bhok put it plainly: they are poor, and they would like their village to stay green and clean. The same thing is being done to village after village across the Central Highlands.
