On January 23, the Investigation Police Agency of Kien Giang Province Police announced that it had initiated a case, prosecuted the accused, and executed a temporary detention order against 6 subjects to investigate the act of murder.
These defendants are related to a murder case that occurred in the waters of Kien Giang. The victim, a worker on a fishing boat, was tied up and beaten to death.
The incident occurred around November-December 2024. The subjects Hai, Lung, Thanh Giang, Son, Danh Giang, and Chieu tied up and threw the victim named P.N.T (born in 1990) into the sea. When the victim lay unconscious on the sea surface, these subjects pulled him onto the ship to give him CPR, but P.N.T had already died. Hai (captain) directed the other subjects to throw the body into the sea to cover up the crime.
The death of fisherman P.N.T was an inevitable consequence because the victim had endured prolonged torture without being protected by anyone.
In the western sea, from Ca Mau to Kien Giang, there have been many cases of torture and beating of fishermen. Many fishing boats at sea are like a private world, where thugs disregard the law and torture fishermen very cruelly. A typical case is the case of two fishermen being beaten, having their teeth broken, and being forced to eat raw fish on a fishing boat in Ca Mau that shocked public opinion, the case has been brought to trial.
The case of beating a fisherman to death and dumping the victim's body into the sea in Kien Giang to destroy evidence is truly a heinous crime. The perpetrators must be investigated and severely punished.
There have been many cases of fishermen being treated like slaves on fishing boats. They work and endure torture at sea like "hell on earth", the press has reported a lot but the authorities have not been able to stop all gangs of thugs at sea.
How to prevent this, first of all, is to bind the ship owner's responsibility to the fishermen. When the ship owner hires fishermen as laborers to work on fishing boats, the obligations, rights and responsibilities of both parties must be bound. The ship owner must commit to ensuring the health and lives of the workers, and cannot hand over to the captain and thugs to manage and treat the fishermen like slaves.
Authorities must be responsible for forcing ship owners to fulfill their responsibilities towards workers. They cannot allow a "wild" working environment at sea like the recent cases.
