Flawed justice: one-legged man drags upstairs, shooed by Court

63-year-old An Van Chau

Photo: Tuoi Tre

A 63-year-old, one-legged man had to abandon his wheelchair and dragged himself upstairs unassisted to submit papers to a Ho Chi Minh City court which, again, turned him down for the third time.

Tuoi Tre reporters happened to be at the District 4 People’s Court on Friday and interviewed him.

An Van Chau said he was turned down the first time when he had a friend submit the papers for him while he was waiting outside. An officer told his friend Chau must submit in person.

The second time, a female court officer came down to meet him but told him to come next time with additional documents.

On Friday, after he came, a security guard told him the officer who received him last time was absent and the others were too busy.

That’s why I climbed upstairs to directly meet them, Chau told Tuoi Tre.

“I’m a human. I don’t want to look that pathetic, but as they refused to come down, I have to go upstairs”.

But this time the court also rejected his papers. Chau said an officer named Minh told him to contact the City People’s Court as his court – the district one – did not have enough jurisdiction since a party involved is away in Canada.

Chau said he should have been told in the first place.

He ‘climbed’ down, politely declining reporters’ help and shaking his head from time to time.

When Tuoi Tre were interviewing Chau downstairs, a woman who introduced herself as deputy presiding judge of the district court told them to “go away.”

She spoke out loud that reporters were not allowed to do their job without court’s permission.

She also called security guards to send the reporters out.

According to lawyer Nguyen Huu The Trach of the HCMC Bar Association, it is unacceptable for the court to let a disabled person crawl on the stairs.

The officers should have gone downstairs to receive him and take the papers, he said, adding there are certain regulations requiring civil servants to privilege disabled persons.

Another Lawyer, Nguyen Minh Thuan said the officers in this case did not fulfill their duties.

Chau has been using the wheelchair for 30 years.
 

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Official told to remove dubious degree from resume

Inspectors from the Communist Party Unit in the northern province of Phu Tho have told a high-ranking official not to name his dubious doctorate degree in his CV, Vietnamnet reported Wednesday.

In Vietnam, it means that Nguyen Ngoc An, director of the provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, will lose edges in his career promotion.

The inspectors made the move after An was suspected of dishonestly earning a doctorate degree from the US-owned Southern Pacific University.

Media reports in June raised questions about the quality of the university, which was ordered to halt its operations in 2003 after being found to have violated higher education regulations by Hawaiian education authorities.

Some online reports suggested that SPU has since shifted its base of operations to Malaysia.

But, in its latest conclusion, the Phu Tho Inspectorate Commission said SPU was established legally in the state of Delaware, citing the confirmations from Vietnamese Embassy in San Francisco and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, according to Vietnamnet.

The school, where An studied and defended his doctorate thesis between December 2008 and September 2009, has been operating legally, it stressed.

SPU, however, isn’t famous and doesn’t have close cooperation with professional associations, inspectors said, adding that the university is majored in training Asian students who can’t study in US, the news source quoted inspectors as saying.

In an interview with local newspaper Saigon Tiep Thi, Bui Minh Chau, chief of the commission, said his agency hasn’t authorities to assess the quality of An’s diploma, but confirm if SPU is operating in US or not.

While all the expenses and tuition fees were paid by An, who told the press that he had spent US$17,000 on the course, the official had failed to frequently report his studying results to his superiors, they said.

In July, Nguyen Van Ngoc, deputy chief of the Party Unit of the northern province of Yen Bai, was also probed following accusations that he had dubiously earned doctorate degree from SPU.

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Official told to remove dubious degree from resume

Inspectors from the Communist Party Unit in the northern province of Phu Tho have told a high-ranking official not to name his dubious doctorate degree in his CV, Vietnamnet reported Wednesday.

In Vietnam, it means that Nguyen Ngoc An, director of the provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, will lose edges in his career promotion.

The inspectors made the move after An was suspected of dishonestly earning a doctorate degree from the US-owned Southern Pacific University.

Media reports in June raised questions about the quality of the university, which was ordered to halt its operations in 2003 after being found to have violated higher education regulations by Hawaiian education authorities.

Some online reports suggested that SPU has since shifted its base of operations to Malaysia.

But, in its latest conclusion, the Phu Tho Inspectorate Commission said SPU was established legally in the state of Delaware, citing the confirmations from Vietnamese Embassy in San Francisco and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, according to Vietnamnet.

The school, where An studied and defended his doctorate thesis between December 2008 and September 2009, has been operating legally, it stressed.

SPU, however, isn’t famous and doesn’t have close cooperation with professional associations, inspectors said, adding that the university is majored in training Asian students who can’t study in US, the news source quoted inspectors as saying.

In an interview with local newspaper Saigon Tiep Thi, Bui Minh Chau, chief of the commission, said his agency hasn’t authorities to assess the quality of An’s diploma, but confirm if SPU is operating in US or not.

While all the expenses and tuition fees were paid by An, who told the press that he had spent US$17,000 on the course, the official had failed to frequently report his studying results to his superiors, they said.

In July, Nguyen Van Ngoc, deputy chief of the Party Unit of the northern province of Yen Bai, was also probed following accusations that he had dubiously earned doctorate degree from SPU.

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Three arrested for dumping mud, burying tombs in Hanoi

Police in Hanoi have taken three men into custody for allegedly dumping construction waste in a graveyard.

Initial reports showed that, on August 21, Pham Hong Ky, an executive from An Thanh Traffic Mechanism Joint-Stock Company, ordered his drivers to discharge mud at the Dong Trua Graveyard in the Duong Noi Ward.

Duong Van Son and Nguyen Van Duong, a pair of security guards contracted to watch construction sites along Le Van Luong Street, were also arrested.

Tests carried out by police in Duong Noi Ward traced the mud back to the sites. Several truck drivers who had previously been arrested told investigators that security guards had told them to unload at the graveyard.

In addition to the arrests, police confiscated ten trucks, including four belonging to An Thanh Company.

In the meantime, a search team including hundreds of workers spent nine days digging through nearly 1,000 cubic meters of earth to uncover the tombs.

Their search efforts were hampered by continuous rains and mud up to four meters thick.

Workers had to uncover 36 tombs, which are old and in a delicate condition, very carefully and without machinery, the search party leader, Nguyen Xuan Ben, told local news website VnExpress.

Trinh Nhu Ha, vice chairman of Duong Noi People’s Committee, said it will take between two and three days to clean up the mud and get the graveyard back to normal.

Affected locals will then hold a ceremony to apologize to the dead with local authorities’ support, according to Ha. He estimated that the search and repair operations will cost hundreds of millions of dong.

While investigations are ongoing, locals are outraged.

“I feel so indignant!” local Dang Ba Hai told a VnExpress reporter. “I couldn’t do anything but ask for help from ward authorities and then keep an eye on the search.”

Hai said five of his family’s burial sites were covered in the thick mud.

“This is not only against the law; it’s downright immoral,” he said.

According to Le Khanh Dong, chairman of Duong Noi Ward’s People’s Committee, local people all expect related agencies to severely punish the perpetrators.

Duong Thi Hoa, whose younger brother’s tomb was buried in the mud, said, “It’s lucky that the tomb wasn’t damaged. I hope agencies will punish those people who have committed such a heinous act.”

Desecrating a burial site in Vietnam carries a penalty of up to five years in prison.

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