Vietnam Free Expression Newsletter No. 26/2017 – Week of August 21-27

RELEVANT NEWS & ANALYSIS

Youth Use Social Media to Press Environmental, Social Issues in Authoritarian Vietnam: “With​ ​over​ ​30​ ​million​ ​users​ ​now​ ​on​ ​Facebook​ ​in​ ​Vietnam,​ ​Vietnamese​ ​activists,​ ​many​ ​of​ ​them young​ ​adults,​ ​easily​ ​transformed​ ​themselves​ ​into​ ​reporters​ ​by​ ​posting​ ​pictures​ ​of​ ​dead​ ​fish​ ​and videos​ ​of​ ​police​ ​abuse​ ​of​ ​protesters​ ​online. ‘[Young​ ​people]​ ​are​ ​larger​ ​in​ ​numbers,​ ​and​ ​they​ ​are​ ​savvier​ ​with​ ​social​ ​media​ ​and​ ​computers and​ ​iPhones​ ​and​ ​networking​ ​and​ ​Facebook,’ ​San​ ​Diego-based​ ​Vietnamese​ ​Human​ ​Rights Network​ ​founding​ ​member​ ​Nguyen​ ​Giao​ ​told​ ​RFA​ ​in​ ​an​ ​interview.”

In Vietnam, Repression Threatens Growth: “Such tactics are also likely to impede investment. Many of Vietnam’s regional rivals for attracting overseas investors — such as Indonesia and the Philippines — are democracies. They have problems of their own, of course. But research has found that democratic institutions can reduce risk for foreign investors, and that Vietnam could increase its FDI significantly by expanding democracy. Further repression, in other words, would be a competitive disadvantage.”

How Vietnamese Pop Star Mai Khoi Found Her Political Voice & Was Silenced By Her Government: “This pop star is on a dangerous, dissident mission, which she lays out to me from the get-go. ‘[I want] to be free to say what I want, sing what I want, wear what I want, go where I want and not having someone looking over me and saying, you can’t do that,’ she says. These are all uncontroversial, garden-variety goals in democratic countries, like the U.S. or France; but in communist Vietnam, there’s nothing routine about them.”

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Former prisoner of conscience Nguyen Van Oai was supposed to face trial on Monday, August 21 after seven months of pre-trial detention, but news came that his trial has been postponed. According to a notice from the People’s court of Hoang Mai commune, the court received a motion to postpone the trial from several individuals with related legitimate interests. The court did not provide more details as to the reasons for the motion, what constitutes “related legitimate interests,” or the substantive grounds for granting the motion.

Citizen journalist Phan Kim Khanh’s trial is likely to occur soon, although no exact date has been confirmed. His family has sent another request for legal aid to lawyer Ha Huy Son. It is unsure whether the lawyer will be granted a defense counsel certificate in order to represent Khanh in court, given that the lawyer’s request for such a certificate had previously been denied.

COMING UP

International human rights organizations, governments, and activists’ eyes are on Hanoi as September 2nd approaches. In the past, this day, Vietnam’s Independence Day, has been a day when the government grants amnesty to prisoners. Those granted amnesty are normally in prison for nonpolitical crimes, but some prisoners of conscience have been granted amnesty in the past. Normally, this has been made clear in advance, but this year, with the President out of the public eye, the chances for amnesty are looking weaker than usual.

TAKE ACTION

Please take Amnesty International’s Urgent Action for Nguyen Bac Truyen, whose location has been unknown since he was reported arrested almost one month ago.