Given the recent violent clashes between citizens and police in Vietnam, the proposed ban on audio and video recording devices, and arrests of several prominent bloggers so far in 2017, it may come as little surprise that Vietnam ranks 175 out of 180 countries on Reporters Without Borders’s (RSF) newly-released 2017 World Press Freedom Index. […]
A new report from Amnesty International, Death Sentences and Executions 2016, sheds light on the numbers of those executed under the death penalty in Vietnam in recent years. The global amount of executions decreased from 2015 to 2016, and it is still declining in the US as well. In Vietnam, however, recently disclosed data shows that […]
With the controversial actions of the Trump administration in the weeks since the inauguration, many are wondering what four years of Trump means for minority groups and the future of the US and other nations alike. The 88 Project explores what impact Trump could have on Vietnam, US-Asia relations, and human rights in the region. Under […]
In its newest report, Freedom in the World 2017, Freedom House has once again decided that Vietnam is “Not Free.” Many other Asian countries, including all of Vietnam’s neighbors, received the same designation, reflecting the larger trends of repression of freedom of expression and the violations of human rights seen in Asia and other regions […]
The media has been buzzing lately with news about Vietnam– the protests of the large-scale fish deaths, President Obama’s visit (and the question of lifting the arms ban), and the much-welcomed release of Father Nguyen Van Ly from his fourth, and hopefully final, prison sentence. We also want to make sure that news circulates about […]
The U.S. State Department’s latest report on human rights in Vietnam notes the lack of female and minority participation in national decision-making, despite the introduction of quotas. According to the report, less than one quarter of the National Assembly is made up of women, and only two out of 28 cabinet positions are held by females. […]
In Hanoi this month, police detained ~30 people in a protest over land grabs. The entire protest drew about 100 participants and 200-300 police. Radio Free Asia notes that, “Land grabs in which government officials use their authority to confiscate and sell land to developers are a common cause of social unrest across Southeast Asia, […]
It seems like Vietnam’s New Year’s resolution for 2016 is the same as it was in 2015: find new ways to intimidate, harass, and otherwise abuse the human rights of activists. Recent events in the country demonstrate the increasingly non-traditional and interconnected ways by which the government cracks down on dissent. During a protest in […]
The 88 Project is pleased to learn that blogger and former police officer Ta Phong Tan has been released early from her 10-year prison sentence in Vietnam. Tan, though, has been exiled from Vietnam and sent to the United States. Tan was arrested in 2011, tried in 2012, and charged under Article 88 of Vietnam’s Penal […]
Dear Official: September 2nd is National Day, the day of Vietnam’s independence, and the day during which, at least in recent years, Vietnam has granted amnesty to select prisoners. I was pleased to learn last week that Vietnam will release upwards of 18,000 prisoners this year. However, I was greatly displeased to learn that not […]