Notable events:

• Human Rights Watch Urges Taiwan Courts to Ease Bureaucratic Burdens for Victims of Formosa Plastics Pollution
• Two Dong Tam Villagers Released, One Denounces Police Torture
• Long An Police Request Medical Records of Buddhist Practitioners for ‘Incest’ Investigation
• State Department Expresses Concerns over Sentencing of  Dissident Blogger Phan Tat Thanh

Human Rights Watch Urges Taiwan Courts to Ease Bureaucratic Burdens for Victims of Formosa Pollution

Patricia Gossman, associate Asia director at the New York-based rights advocate Human Rights Watch (HRW), has published a letter outlining the bureaucratic hurdles faced by Vietnamese victims of the environmental disaster that involved the Formosa Plastics Group in April 2016. The Taiwan-related company Hung Nghiep Formosa Ha Tinh, located in Ky Anh City,  discharged its untreated toxic wastewater off the Vietnamese coastal area, leading to massive fish deaths and the loss of livelihoods of local fishing communities.

The Vietnamese government has harshly cracked down on protests that erupted following the environmental disaster and imprisoned many local activists and journalists who reported on this incident. They included blogger Pham Doan Trang, labor activist Hoang Duc Binh, and Nguyen Nam Phong, a driver who took petitioners to an event where hundreds of people were gathering to file court petitions against Formosa Plastics. According to HRW, at least 41 activists involved in multiple protests were sentenced, and 31 of them are currently behind bars.