Project88 Vietnam Newsletter No. 42/2024 – Nov. 26-Dec. 8

Greetings from Project88. We bring you news, analysis, and actions regarding human rights and civil society in Vietnam from Nov. 26-Dec 8.

Nine people were sentenced to prison for “abusing democratic freedoms,” five of whom are Khmer Buddhist monks. And two Protestant leaders have reported they were shot under strange circumstances. In Vietnam, those who practice religion outside of officially state-sanctioned groups are often subjected to harassment and even imprisonment.

The wives of two political prisoners, as well as former political prisoner Tran Hoang Phuc, have all been summoned recently for police questioning. Summons are often used by the police to intimidate people into self-censorship, as well as to exert control over activists’ movements. Two of the three were allegedly summoned because of their online postings. Vietnam has introduced Decree 147, which goes into effect on Christmas, to further control online activities and information. The potential impacts of the decree are concerning, and news this week reveals that Vietnam already censored over 15,000 pieces of “anti-state” content in just one year.

HUMAN RIGHTS & CIVIL SOCIETY

Five Khmer Buddhist monks and four religious activists were sentenced to a total of 27 years in prison for “abusing democratic freedoms” by a court in Long An province on Nov. 27. The head monk Thach Chanh Da Ra, 34, received the longest sentence of six years. The monks did not have lawyers at the trial. For years, Da Ra has been resisting pressure from the government to merge his ethnic congregation into the state-run Buddhist Church, including harassment, destruction of temple buildings, and cutting down of a 700-year-old tree that’s believed to be part of the Khmer-Krom community’s historical identity. Soon after Da Ra’s arrest, the state appointed a government-friendly monk to replace him.

Y Quynh Bdap is the son of one of two Ede pastors who claim they were recently shot in retaliation for exercising their religious beliefs 

Two Ede Protestant leaders in the Central Highlands have been shot in what they claim were targeted attacks for practicing their independent religious beliefs. Pastor Y Hung Ayun, a former political prisoner, was shot with a rubber bullet while riding a motorbike in Dak Lak on Dec. 1. Two masked men rode up alongside him and shot him in the knee, leaving bruises. Ayun oversees a house church in Tara Puor village and has for years been under government pressure to join the state-run church. Pastor Y Pho Eban, who leads a religious group from his home in Cue village, believes he was shot by people in the area claiming to be hunters while cutting grass at home in September. Eban is the father of Y Quynh Bdap, who is currently awaiting potential extradition from Thailand to Vietnam for a conviction in absentia of “terrorism” in connection with a June 2023 attack on government and police offices in Dak Lak — an accusation Bdap has consistently denied. Read coverage of this story in Vietnamese, here.

Trinh Ba Phuong

Trinh Ba Phuong‘s wife, Do Thi Thu, received an “invitation letter” (i.e. summons) from police in Duong Noi precinct in Hanoi to appear the following day to discuss her “online activities.” Thu told the police that she could not comply because her son was sick, and also because “I’m exhausted from having to take care of my family and my husband. I have no time to see you.”

Bui Tuan Lam

Le Thanh Lam, wife of noodle seller Bui Tuan Lam, also received an “invitation letter” from Da Nang police to discuss her recent Facebook posts, which were alleged to have “appeared to have violated the law.” Thanh Lam and her three daughters recently traveled over 1,000 km to visit Lam, only to be told when they got to Xuan Loc Prison that he had just been put in leg shackles the day before, allegedly for fighting with a criminal inmate who had recently been transferred to his cell. This is the third time Lam says he’s been shackled for disciplinary reasons.

Thanh Lam posted on her Facebook page the story of her unfruitful trip and the toll it took on the children. She told Project88 this week that she had learned that the prisoner’s name is Minh Tan, that he’s serving a long sentence, and he is not permitted to receive visitors or supplies from his family. She said her husband had even tried to help Tan by sharing food and teaching him Korean. She believes Tuan Lam would never break prison rules on purpose knowing that his wife and children were coming to visit. Tuan Lam is serving a five-and-a-half year sentence for spreading “anti-state propaganda” after satirizing then-Minister of Public Security To Lam’s infamous gold-covered beef dinner in London in 2021.

On Dec. 5, Tran Hoang Phuc, who is still under probation after completing his six-year sentence in June 2023, was summoned to the police station to answer questions about his activities; he was reminded not to go anywhere outside the area. Phuc’s mother, Huynh Thi Ut, told Project88 that the family’s home has been closely monitored the past few days and that she believes it might have something to do with a visit to Hanoi by foreign diplomats. This is at least the third time Phuc has been summoned while on probation.

INTERNATIONAL ADVOCACY

Journalist Truong Huy San was arrested in June and is still awaiting trial 

People Power Under Attack 2024 – Asia Pacific. CIVICUS; 2024-12-04. Scores of HRDs were detained on trumped-up charges in Vietnam over the year, including for ‘propaganda against the state’ and ‘deliberately disclosing state secrets’. They include blogger Nguyen Chi Tuyen, journalists Nguyen Vu Binh and Truong Huy San, labour rights activist Nguyen Van Binh, trade unionist Vu Minh Tien and lawyer Tran Dinh Trien. In addition, in March 2024 two ethnic Khmer Krom activists who distributed books about Indigenous rights were sentenced to prison for ‘abusing democratic freedoms’.

Southeast Asian MPs: Halt Forced Extradition of Vietnamese Human Rights Defender. ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights; 2024-11-29. ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) strongly condemns the potential forced extradition of Montagnard refugee and human rights activist Y Quynh Bdap from Thailand to Vietnam. Such an act would place him at extreme risk of torture, enforced disappearance, or other serious human rights abuses.

US lawmaker calls for release of Vietnamese political prisoner. VOA News; 2024-11-27. A top U.S. lawmaker has pledged to work with rights groups as a special advocate for Dang Dinh Bach, a Vietnamese climate activist and political prisoner, and called on Hanoi to immediately release Bach from jail. Representative Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, announced that he will advocate for Bach through the Defending Freedoms Project, part of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission.

VIETNAM IN THE WORLD

Secretary Antony J. Blinken met with Chairman of the CPV’s Commission for External Relations Le Hoai Trung. US Embassy and Consulate in Vietnam; 2024-12-02. SECRETARY BLINKEN: I think the strength of our Comprehensive Strategic Partnership reflects the importance and value that we both attach to this relationship and to the many things that we’re working to accomplish together in the Indo-Pacific.  And I think you can already see many of the benefits flowing from the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, including stronger cooperation and work together on everything from semiconductors to supply chain resilience to deeper and broader educational exchanges, capacity building, cultural exchanges, and of course war legacy issues.

Vietnam must manage its Trump-era expectations. East Asia Forum; 2024-12-02. Vietnam’s support for president-elect Donald Trump may be tempered by the realities of his ‘America First’ policies, which prioritize US interests and often undermine multilateral agreements. While many Vietnamese view Trump as a leader who can bolster regional stability, his focus on reducing trade imbalances could lead to tariffs and disrupt Vietnam’s exports to the United States. Trump’s transactional foreign policy approach may also challenge Vietnam’s strategic partnership with the United States, particularly in the face of US–China competition.

Vietnam PM urges US to lift some high-tech export restrictions. Reuters; 2024-11-27. Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on Wednesday urged the United States to lift export restrictions on some technology and said the country wanted to develop satellite communications. The prime minister also reiterated a call for the United States to recognise the Communist-run country as a market economy, a move that could reduce tariffs on sanctioned trades.

ADDITIONAL NEWS AND ANALYSIS

Social media platforms censor 15,000 pieces of ‘anti-state’ content in Vietnam. Radio Free Asia; 2024-12-02. Global social media platforms Facebook, Google, and TikTok censored more than 15,000 pieces of content deemed to be “anti-Party and anti-state,” over the past year in Vietnam, government statistics showed. The scale of censorship was revealed on Nov. 28, during a conference of the Ministry of Information and Communications, where the Internet Service Management Agency reported that it ordered the companies to remove content that “violated Vietnamese laws.”

So sánh Lê Tuấn Khang với Hồ Chí Minh, TikToker bị phạt tiền 30 triệu đồng. Radio Free Asia Vietnamese; 2024-12-05.

Analysts say Vietnamese decree deepens control over social media. VOA News; 2024-11-28. Along with adding regulations concerning online gaming, the decree says social media platforms operating in Vietnam must store user data locally, give user information to the government on demand, and take down what authorities consider illegal content within 24 hours.

Nvidia to build AI research, data centres in Vietnam with govt. Reuters; 2024-12-05. Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab and the Vietnamese government will jointly set up an AI research and development centre and an AI data centre in the Southeast Asian country under an agreement signed on Thursday.

Experts dismiss lightning as cause of fatal explosion during Vietnam military drills. Radio Free Asia; 2024-12-05. Initial findings indicate that lightning struck an electric detonator, causing it to detonate the explosives, the agency reported. However, RFA spoke with two military experts who raised doubts about the stated cause of the explosion and called for accountability from the military leaders involved.

Vietnam court upholds tycoon’s death sentence for $12bn bank fraud. Al Jazeera; 2024-12-03. The High People’s Court determined there was no basis to reduce [Truong My] Lan’s death sentence, local media reported. However, it also said that the sentence could be commuted to life imprisonment should she repay three-quarters of the money.

Vietnam Sets Off Down the Path of Institutional ‘Revolution’. The Diplomat; 2024-12-03. On December 1, the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV)’s Politburo organized a hybrid national conference on streamlining the apparatus within the political system. At the conference, Le Minh Hung, chairperson of the Central Commission for Personnel Affairs and a rising star in the party, outlined a plan to streamline the Vietnamese “political system.”

Vietnam affirms commitment to implementing Convention Against Torture. VOV World; 2024-11-28. An international workshop on introducing the Second Periodic Report of Vietnam under the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment was held in Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday. Speaking at the event, Major General Nguyen Van Ky, Deputy Director of the Department of Foreign Affairs, highlighted Vietnam’s commitment to the Convention, which it joined on March 17, 2015.

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