HANOI, VIETNAM: Hundreds of people are camping out near a government building in southern Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City to protest alleged corruption and unfair compensation for their land, taken for infrastructure projects, police said Saturday (July 7th).
Protesters from nine southern provinces have converged since June 22th in front of the representative office of the lawmaking National Assembly, said a police officer in Phu Nhuan District. He declined to give his name, citing policy.
"They have set up tents on the pavements, hung up banners and placards demanding fair compensation for their land and denouncing local corruption," the officer said.
He said police were deployed to help keep order and control traffic.
The officer said that leaders of some provinces where the protesters came from had tried to persuade them to go home, but that most of them did not back down.
Saturday's Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper quoted deputy government inspector Le Tien Hao as saying senior government inspectors have been sent to the provinces to urge the provincial leaders to resolve the disputes.
Scenes of people gathering at government buildings to demand better compensation for confiscated land have become common in Vietnam.
Hundreds of hectares (acres) of land are being taken each year for industrial parks and other infrastructure projects.
Several people have been brought to court for attacking authorities in land disputes in recent years. (AP)
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