Vietnamese Government Arrests Human Rights Activist
The Vietnamese police have been arresting an increasing number of citizens on grounds of opposition towards the government (Flickr).
The Vietnamese government arrested human rights activist Pham Doan Trang at her home in Ho Chi Minh City on the night of October 6. She was charged with conducting anti-state propaganda, which has a maximum jail sentence of 20 years. Confirmed by the Vietnamese state news, this accusation entails the “making, storing, disseminating or propagandising information, materials, and products that aim to oppose the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” which has been used to crack down on hundreds of dissenters in the recent past. Notably, this arrest took place on the same day as the U.S.-Vietnam dialogue on human rights, which raises questions about Vietnam’s commitment to ideas of liberty.
Originally a journalist, Pham Doan Trang later became an activist and author. She has written on a myriad of topics, including women’s rights, LGBTQ+ issues, environmental concerns, and Vietnamese politics. Her book Politics for Everyone is even regarded as a de facto manual for activism. For her work in Vietnam, she won a Press Freedom Prize from the organization Reporters without Borders in 2019.
Trang also founded the Liberal Publishing House, but she resigned in July of last year, citing police harassment and pressure against her and the organization. Trang and her colleagues had been subjected to physical attacks, smear campaigns, and detainments by the Vietnamese government. Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director for the Human Rights Watch, commends her courage, stating that “despite suffering years of systemic government harassment, she has remained faithful to her principles of peaceful advocacy for human rights and democracy.”
Vietnam is a communist police state in which the government stifles dissent, whether it be physical or online. Peaceful protestors and online activists are often detained and charged with the crime of anti-state propaganda. Human rights groups have noticed that these arrests, which are already quite prevalent throughout Vietnam, have actually increased since late 2019. Many have attributed this development to the 13th Communist Party Congress scheduled for January 2021. Occurring every five years, this National Congress is one of the largest political events in Vietnam and chooses members of the Central Committee and the State President. In the lead-up to this event, the government has been tightening national security and increasing surveillance on activists.
The arrest of Pham Doan Trang comes on the same day as the 24th Annual US-Vietnam Human Rights Dialogue, which highlights Vietnam’s contradictory stance on the international stage. In this meeting, United States and Vietnamese representatives addressed human rights issues, especially the importance of the rule of law and freedom of expression. These were both violated in the case of Trang and many others. Other topics discussed were labor rights as well as the rights of ethnic minorities and disabled people.
This year has also seen a sharp rise in state crackdowns on social media. Reports have shown the pressure Facebook has faced from the Vietnamese government, which has attempted to take servers offline, resulting in the censorship of anti-state content on the platform. In addition, the Vietnamese government is trying to pass new cybersecurity laws that would require other internet companies, such as Google, to remove anti-government content. These developments raise worries about the plight of dissenters in Vietnam going forward.