Police in northern Hai Phong City have detained four of the about 50 men for assaulting farmers who refused to leave a project land plot in Tien Lang District a week ago due to dirt-cheap compensation. Of the four men, three gave themselves up to police several days after committing the offense, said Senior Lieutenant Colonel Pham Duy Dien, chief of the Secretariat of the city Police Department. The names of the detainees have yet to be announced by the district police, who are calling others involved to hand themselves in. As previously reported, about ten farmers in the district’s Dai Thang Commune were assaulted about 50 unknown men after they refused to leave their land as requested by Quynh Duong Co Ltd  on April 21. The farmers refuse to hand over their plots to a construction project as they do not accept the dirt-cheap compensation rate. Quynh Duong was hired by Hoa Thanh Co Ltd, the project’s investor, to transport machinery and equipment to a land area of 88,000 square meters that comprises the said farmers’ land plots. Quynh Duong in turn hired Toan Cau Guard Security Company to keep order in the construction site.,

These farmers said they were asked to leave the site so that workers could level the ground, but they stayed. Not long later, despite the presence of Toan Cau’s security guards, more than 50 strange young men came in cars and assaulted those who did not leave the site with wooden sticks and stones.

The attackers later escaped when local police appeared and took the injured to Tien Lang District Hospital.

After the incident all the three companies, Hoa Thanh, Quynh Duong and Toan Cau, said they had nothing to do with the assault.

Of the 123 households affected by the project, more than 100 do not accept the low compensation rate, which is only VND23,700 (US$1.14) per square meter, including allowances, Vu Duc Canh, deputy chairman of Tien Lang District People's Committee, said.

However, the authorities have yet to impose forced eviction, since the complaints over compensation have yet to be resolved, Canh said.