Typical examples of communal police force honored

Minister To Lam awards the Certificates of Merit from the Ministry of Public Security to typical communal police officers.

General To Lam, Member of the Politburo, Secretary of the Central Police's Party Committee, Minister of Public Security chaired the event that was also to mark the 75th People's Public Security Forces’ founding anniversary (August 19, 1945 - August 19, 2020), the 15th “All People Protecting National Security” Festive Day (August 19, 2005 – August 19, 2020), and the 70th Communal Police Force’s founding anniversary (October 10, 1950 - October 20, 2020).

Over the past 70 years of its development, the communal police force has played a pioneer role in safeguarding security at the grassroots level, especially in remote, border and ethnic minority localities. Despite various difficulties, the force has successfully completed all its assigned tasks.

From December 2016 to December 2019, the communal police force participated in investigating nearly 80,000 criminal cases, or 51% of the total number cases nationwide. They arrested and handled over 140,000 criminal suspects and destroyed 3,365 criminal gangs operating in rural areas with 9,000 people involved, accounting for 52% of the total criminal gangs destroyed across the country.

Since the 2008 Ordinance on Communal Police came into effect, 63 and 642 commune police officers were respectively killed and injured while performing their duties. For their outstanding achievements and sacrifices, 70 teams and 86 individuals of the Communal Police Force were awarded Certificates of merit by the Government while many others were honored by authorities at all levels.

In the discussion session chaired by Major General Nguyen Duy Ngoc, Deputy Minister of Public Security, delegates shared good experiences and creative methods of maintaining security and order in their localities. The delegates also highlighted the role and contributions of the semi-professional communal police force while affirming the rightness of the project on deploying professional police officers to communes.

At the meeting, Minister To Lam awarded the Certificates of Merit to 75 communal police officers with outstanding achievements over the past time. He also presented gifts to five wounded communal police officers.

According to Minister To Lam, the MPS will complete and submit the draft Law on Forces Responsible for Security at Grassroots Level, creating a legal framework for the establishment and operation of the grassroots-level security protection forces, including the semi-professional communal police force.

The Minister also stated that the Public Security Central Party Committee, the MPS and the all public security units and agencies will create the most favorable conditions for the Communal Police Force to bring their potentials into full play and effectively participate in maintaining security and social order at the grassroots levels in the coming time.