Correcting my writing and I will guide you to travel in Vietnam :)

Hi everybody. My name is Ly. I come from Vietnam. My hobby is writing diary. Could you please correct my mistakes? Thank you so much.

If you have plan to travel to Vietnam. Let me know. My email is Email Removed">Email Removed

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At the time of the protest, I was working in a law firm in Saigon. I was studying English at the Ho Chi Minh University of Social Sciences and Humanities and I was studying for my Attorney certification from The Justice Academy of Ho Chi Minh City.

On June 10, 2018, I joined the protest against 2 drafted laws on the Special Economic Zones and Cyber Security, along with thousands of Saigonese.

By the end of June 10, many young people were arrested, terrorized, and had their phones confiscated. I was publicizing the right to protest, and offering free counsel for those who were arrested.

On June 1, I continued to protest. Around 10 am, while I was sitting in Ba Muoi Tháng Tu Park near Notre Dame Cathedral, about 10 plain-clothes police officers came and demanded to check my ID cards. I objected. Then, they stuffed me in a four-seater car. They took me to the stadium near Tao Dan Park. I saw another 100 people including women, children in that temporary detention center. I saw a man whose limbs was held by 5 officers. They were punching his head and stomping on his body. I ran to his side and yelled: "Why are you hurting people?", but I was quickly dragged away. I also saw people being taken to hospitals in an unconscious state with bleeding heads. I felt extremely powerless because I had witnessed this police brutality without being able to do anything.

They took my phone, bag and jacket. Next, I was interrogated by three plain-clothes men. A big man was making threats. A thin man was insulting me with "whore, bitch, revolutionary-wanna be". A well-dressed man was playing good cop: "you cooperate and get to go home, we don’t want to do anything to you.". After about an hour of interrogation, I remained silent and did not confess any crime which I didn’t commit. They invited Vice President Pham Tan Ha of the Ho Chi Minh University of Social Sciences and Humanities and Tran Nam, from the university’s communication department. In front of two teachers, a plain-clothes woman slapped me for not signing their confession. I remember crying a lot. I did not cry because I was hurt. I cried because my two professors could not protect me from the violent act of those police officers.

After about an hour, the two professors signed their statement and left. Then, I felt lost. I felt scared to be there by myself, surrounded by cold-blooded thugs wearing the cover of the People’s police.

I was surrounded by what seem to be ten police officers who took turn interrogating me with brute force. There were 4 women, I can never forget the fat woman who spoke the Northern accent. She called my mother and threaten her, she repeatedly punched me, pulled my hair and slammed my head against the table. I also can not forget a good-looking woman, “white face”, wore green gloves. Her name was Hien. She wrapped one hand on my neck, and other hand was punching my stomach. Even though it was painful, I still tried to be calm. They took off my glasses, while I couldn’t see, they held my hands and forced me to sign the confession and other documents they had prepared. I resisted and demanded a lawyer: "I will not sign anything without my lawyer here." That triggered them, those ten men and women started beating me even more frantically. I fell down on the floor, they continued to stomp on me. There were other policemen standing around to block, because they did not want other people to see the scene. I was dizzy and in severe pain. I just wanted to faint to end the suffering.

About 9:00 pm on the same day, they pulled me into a separate room. Three women took off my shoes. They grabbed my bra string and told me to take off my clothes. There were mean-looking men standing there, looking at me. I was extremely scared. I was left with no choice. I was physically and mentally exhausted, felt dizzy and was scared of being sexually assaulted. I agreed to sign the papers to save my honor and avoid the imminent sexual assault. They didn’t give me back my glasses so I wasn’t able to see what I signed, but it was more than 10 documents. Then they took my mugshot, and fingerprints like a criminal.

Around 3:00 am on July 18, they drove me to District 7 Police Station to make more testimonies, signatures, fingerprints . I had to pay a fine for protesting. About 10 am on the same day, they released me home.

A few days later, my landlord kicked me out of the house per the police’s request. I wasn’t able to eat for a week because my mouth was slapped for a long time. I also lost 5 kg after leaving the police station. I went to the hospital for an X-ray later, the result was soft-tissue injuries from being hit. About a month later, my mental and physical states stabilized enough to return to school and work.