Vietnam Free Expression Newsletter No. 7/2018 – Week of February 12-18

NEWS & ANALYSIS

Experts, Veterans Gather to Discuss Vietnam Hill Peoples’ Fate: “The Montagnards still come under constant harassment from the Vietnamese authorities. Their ancestral land is encroached upon and their religious freedom is limited, according to independent human rights expert Sara Colm. ‘A big challenge for Bunong in Vietnam as with all the Montagnard groups in the central highlands is those who feel they need to flee from Vietnam because of persecution, because they’ve been imprisoned and tortured because they can’t practice their religion freely,’ she said.”

Official thuggery exposed as Buddhists jailed: “The pattern is a familiar one to many hundreds of civil society activists, as they try to challenge the Communist party’s monopoly on power. They can expect to be followed in the street, have their homes staked out and telephone calls listened to. Many in recent years have also been subjected to violent assaults by unidentified gangs of men. Such violent attacks are often the final sign that an arrest is imminent.”

Viet Activist’s Sentencing an Omen of Worse to Come: “The case of H[o]ang Duc Binh illustrates a distressing larger picture, that Vietnam’s human rights situation has deteriorated as the United States and other South China Sea nations have increasingly viewed it as a counterweight to China. In 2017, police arrested at least 21 activists for national security offenses that are used to punish critical speech and peaceful activism, according to Human Rights Watch.”

Why Vietnam Locked Up a Buddhist Hermit: “Practitioners of the Hòa Hảo faith and other religious minorities are deeply distrusted and harassed by the paranoid CPV. As a result, they are often the most outspoken dissidents against the authoritarian regime’s single-party monopoly on power. Religious organizations not controlled by the regime are also increasingly becoming foci for civil society organization and peaceful protest—both of which are seen as dangerous and subversive by authorities in Hanoi.”

Why press freedom is at risk across Southeast Asia: “All 10 countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations fall into the bottom third of the annual press freedom league table compiled by Reporters Without Borders of France. Thailand and the Philippines, once vaunted as the freest presses in the region, have slipped from 66 to 142 and 89 to 127, respectively, since the index was introduced in 2002. (The U.S. has also fallen, from 17 to 43.) Within ASEAN, Indonesia does the best, at an unimpressive 124. The bottom slot on the 180-nation list has long been owned by North Korea, but Vietnam and Laos are not much above it at 175 and 170, respectively. For regional comparison, the International Federation of Journalists recently reported ‘unprecedented hardship’ in Hong Kong’s media industry, yet RSF ranked it 73rd. India and China trailed in the ASEAN league at 136 and 176, respectively.”