Kirk here with a call for support for Le Thi Thuy Linh. If you support the appeal, as I hope you will, I hope you will sign and also share this post with others who might also be interested and/or willing to sign.
Here’s the text of an English report about Ms. Linh’s case:
—- quote starts here —-
The Kumamoto District Court has sentenced a 22-year-old Vietnamese woman to eight months in prison, suspended for three years, for abandoning the bodies of her newborn twins last year.
According to Tuesday’s court ruling, Le Thi Thuy Linh, who came to Japan in 2018 to work as a technical trainee, gave birth to twin boys in her company dormitory in Ashikita on or around Nov 15, 2020, Sankei Shimbun reported. She then wrapped the bodies in a cloth and placed them in a cardboard box.
On Nov 16, she took the box to a hospital in Yatsushiro City, where she told medical staff that she had given birth at her dorm and that the twins were stillborn. She gave no information on who the father of the babies was.
NOTE: It has been pointed out to me that this part of the article is wrong. She did not take the box to the hospital. Instead, she left it at her residence. I’ll post separately about this inaccuracy later. – Kirk
Linh’s lawyer said Wednesday she will appeal the ruling, claiming she did not commit a crime. He said she did not abandon the bodies but took them to a hospital.
— quote ends here —-
An NHK article about Ms. Linh’s case and a similar case in Hiroshima can be found here:
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/backstories/1498/
The thrust of the appeal is in the title:
ベトナム人技能実習生リンさんの無罪判決を求めます！ A direct translation might be “We demand (or request) that Ms. Linh be found innocent” but I think that in English it might be more natural to render it “We support Ms. Linh’s appeal for justice!”
I support this. I don’t have time to translate the text of the Change.org appeal right now but everything I have been able to learn about this case tells me that Ms. Linh is a victim, not a criminal. I will sign as soon as I post this. If someone has time to translate the text properly, I’m pretty sure that Ms. Linh’s supporters will be able to make good use of the text.
Finally, there is a paper petition that is being circulated as well. You can only sign one or the other; please be careful not to sign twice. That might cause a problem.
https://www.change.org/p/福岡高等裁判所-第2刑事部-裁判長裁判官-辻川-靖夫-御中-ベトナム人技能実習生リンさんの無罪を求めます?fbclid=IwAR3fVVDJasxevsFklUM8DEcBBOZ8fol_-rzKU3ITTVqodPU8VWjjITDMSlU–
