VNbrands.vn, belonging to the Vietnam Digital Brands Joint Stock Company, was fined 105 million Vietnamese dollars (U.S. $4,100) on May 7 by Vietnam’s Authority of Broadcasting and Electronic Information for what authorities said was an inadequate disclosure of service conditions and agreements on its homepage.

VNbrands’ operating license was also suspended for eight months, media sources said, adding that the company had further provided “insufficient or inaccurate” information related to its license and owner’s name.

Over the past few years, Vietnam has tightened its controls over the sharing of information on social media, with many users fined or even prosecuted and jailed on charges of publishing “fake” or unverified information—especially concerning the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and Vietnam’s recent ruling Party Congress, which elected the country’s new leadership group.

In 2020, Vietnam’s Authority of Broadcasting and Electronic Information and Hanoi’s and Ho Chi Minh City’s Departments of Information and Communications levied administrative fines of over VND 700 million in over 37 cases of violations, official sources said.

With Vietnam’s media following Communist Party orders, “the only sources of independently-reported information are bloggers and independent journalists, who are being subjected to ever-harsher forms of persecution,” the press freedoms watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says in its 2021 Press Freedoms Index.

Measures taken against them now include fines, jailings, and assaults by plainclothes police, RSF said in its report, which placed Vietnam at 175 out of 180 countries surveyed worldwide, a ranking unchanged from last year’s.

In northeastern Vietnam’s Bac Giang province meanwhile, authorities summoned a young user of the TikTok video-sharing service, fining him VND 3.7 million (less than U.S. $200) for wrapping himself in the Vietnamese national flag as a stunt to attract viewers, state media sources reported on May 5.

Identified by media sources as “H.V.K.,” the resident of Bac Giang’s Luc Ngan district told district police he had joined TikTok in June 2020 and had already gained over 100,000 followers and 1.4 million likes on his account.

He had used the flag as a prop in filming a video, he said, and had taken the video down after receiving a torrent of criticism online.

Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Richard Finney

As of Thursday, 52 confirmed cases originating from the hospital were found in 15 different cities and provinces, including Hanoi with nine cases, Hai Duong province with seven cases, and Vinh Phuc and Thai Nguyen provinces with five cases each, the reports said.

Other provinces and cities in Vietnam are continuing to trace the movement of people who were in the medical facility from April 14 to May 5, the day that the hospital was put into isolation.

Vietnam’s Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long has called the hospital’s second facility “a citadel” in protecting the health of people in northern Vietnam from the pandemic.

So far, the facility in the capital’s Dong Anh district has provided treatment for more than 1,000 COVID patients, including many critical ones. No deaths related to COVID-19 have been recorded at the medical center.

Thanh Long said other hospitals nationwide could learn from facility’s quarantine management practices and asked them to carefully and continuously screen their workers and people at high risk of infection to prevent the spread of COVID at health facilities.

Several confirmed virus cases were detected last week among people who had completed 14 days of mandatory quarantine and had received negative test results twice, according to local news reports.

There were at least four people — a Vietnamese returning from Japan, two Chinese, and one Indian — who tested positive after ending isolation periods, according to VietnamNet online newspaper. They had no interaction with each other while in quarantine. Upon their return home from the facilities, the four infected people traveled to many places.

“The recent developments of the pandemic in the world have been very complicated, and the new outbreaks are often stronger, more widespread, and more devastating than the previous ones,” Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long told state media on Wednesday.

“Given this situation, we are very concerned about the threats of the infection from outside,” he said.

Quarantine length increased

Vietnamese health experts said the carriers could have been infected at the quarantine facilities in hotels where they stayed, or they could have contracted the virus abroad and have had an incubation period of more than 14 days, or they could have become infected after leaving the centers, according to the publication.

But they acknowledged that errors in the testing process with the poor handling of samples, collection of unqualified samples, or errors with the testing equipment could have resulted in the negative results.

The experts also recommended that hotels in particular put in place stricter isolation measures to prevent infections.

The Health Ministry said that the supervision of positive cases after 14 days of mandatory quarantine recently had been loosened. But on Tuesday, the ministry sent an urgent notice to all Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention nationwide to hold people who had completed their 14-day isolation periods and had tested negative twice.

The following day, the Health Ministry announced that mandatory 21-day quarantine periods would go into effect the same day for people entering Vietnam from another country and those having been in close contact with others who tested positive for the virus.

On Thursday, the government recorded a total 3,090 COVID cases, including 68 new ones, and 35 total deaths since the pandemic began in the Southeast Asian nation in January 2020.

Authorities ordered students in 18 provinces and cities to stay at home after Vietnam confirmed 64 locally transmitted virus cases between April 29 and May 6, according to state media.

During the third wave of COVID in Vietnam earlier this year, students in 36 provinces and cities had to study online for two to three weeks depending on where they were located as a measure to contain the spread of the highly contagious respiratory virus.

‘An awareness issue’

Health officials say that the Vietnamese have been negligent when it comes to COVID prevention measures and have lowered their guard against the pandemic.

During the public holidays of April 30 and May 1, beaches from north to south were crowded with people, despite warnings of a possible new outbreak.

Dr. Dinh Duc Long expressed concerns over the new outbreak in Vietnam, saying that the situation is very tense with unpredictable developments.

“The risk is very high, [and] perhaps we are facing the highest risk since the pandemic started in 2020,” he said. “In the past, the pandemic was far away, but now many countries in the region have been heavily affected.”

He also said that it was dangerous that the Chinese people were still able to enter Vietnam illegally while the country is short of vaccines.

Dihn Duc Long cited high numbers of beachgoers on Vung Tau Beach southeast of Ho Chi Minh City during the recent public holiday, saying “The government and most people are determined to combat [the COVID outbreak], but some are very negligent and underestimate it.”

“It’s an awareness issue,” he added.

But ordinary citizens raised questions about the authorities’ handling of the latest outbreak.

Tuyet Hanh told RFA that she worries about Vietnam, a poor country of 95 million people, becoming like India which has recently seen record numbers of COVID cases and related deaths daily.

“If the government covers up information about the outbreak, we will fall into the same situation as India,” she said. “The death toll will skyrocket as Vietnam’s health system would be overloaded.”

A resident of Yen Bai province who gave his surname Minh, said that people have let down their defenses when it comes to protecting themselves from being infected with the virus.

“People have lowered their guard as the pandemic has lasting for too long,” he told RFA via Facebook Messenger. “People have been tired of it and felt the economic bite.”

Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

The eight-year terms for the pair, who worked to raise awareness of the socially and politically explosive issue of land grabs in the country of 95 million people, will be followed by three years each on probation, the court’s judgment said.

A well-known activist in Hanoi, Theu was arrested on June 24, 2020 with her sons Trinh Ba Tu and Trinh Ba Phuong on charges of “creating, storing, and disseminating information, documents, items and publications opposing the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” under Article 117 of Vietnam’s Penal Code.

The three family members had been outspoken in social media postings about the Jan. 9, 2020 clash in Dong Tam commune in which 3,000 police stormed barricaded protesters’ homes at a construction site about 25 miles south of the capital, killing a village elder.

They had also offered information to foreign embassies and other international groups to try to raise awareness of the incident.

Three police officers also died in the clash.

Speaking to RFA’s Vietnamese Service after the trial, defense attorney Dang Dinh Manh said that the sentences of eight years in prison and three years’ probation were within the range of outcomes expected by the defendants and their lawyers.

“Both the mother and the son were well prepared for the trial,” Manh said, adding, “They were calm, strong, and steadfast. I’ve been involved in many political cases, but I’ve never seen anyone like them before.”

Theu’s daughter Trinh Thi Thao and daughter-in-law Do Thi Thu were allowed into court for the trial, but Theu’s husband Trinh Ba Khiem, who arrived without identification, was not permitted to attend.

Following the trial, Thao and Manh posted accounts of Theu and her son’s statements in court, where both declared they had been the victims of forced evictions ordered by Vietnamese authorities, who they said fail to represent the country’s people.

Theu also said she had been held by police in a small cell housing 10 people, some of them infected with HIV/AIDS, and that when her cellmates fought she attempted to separate them and was injured in the fighting, causing her to bleed.

Her request to be tested afterward for possible infection was turned down by detention center officials, she said.

Tu said in court that a prosecutor named Vu Binh Minh had once cursed at him, and that an investigator told him he would receive a six-year term if he pleaded guilty, whereas he would otherwise be sentenced to a full eight years.

Responding to questions about their posting of livestream videos, both mother and son said they had published the videos to tell the world about land grabs in Vietnam and to call attention to what they called the “wrongdoings and crimes” committed by government officials.

'Travesty of justice'

In a May 5 statement, rights group Amnesty International condemned the sentences handed down to Can Thi Theu—who had been jailed twice before in 2014 and 2016 for protesting government-ordered seizures of land—and her son, calling their conviction “a travesty of justice.”

“Can Thi Theu and her son, Trinh Ba Tu, are brave human rights defenders who should be protected by the Vietnamese government, not harassed and locked away,” said Emmerlynne Gil, Amnesty’s Deputy Regional Director for Research.

“The authorities in Viet Nam should overturn this unjust conviction without delay and immediately and unconditionally release Can Thi Theu and Trinh Ba Tu. They were convicted solely for peacefully exercising their human rights.”

“The Vietnamese authorities must release all those unjustly imprisoned in Vietnamese jails,” said Gil.

While all land in Vietnam is ultimately held by the state, land confiscations have become a flashpoint as residents accuse the government of pushing small landholders aside in favor of lucrative real estate projects, and of paying too little in compensation to farming families displaced by development.

'Anti-state materials'

Also on May 5, police in coastal Vietnam’s Phu Yen province arrested Nguyen Bao Tien, 35, a distributor for the now-shuttered Liberal Publishing House, charging him with “disseminating anti-State materials” under Article 117, according to state media reports.

From August to October 2019, police investigators said, Tien had received 68 parcels containing books with contents opposing Vietnam’s communist government. He had then sent 24 of the parcels to other people and had kept the remainder in his home, where they were found by police, investigators said.

The Liberal Publishing House was founded in Ho Chi Minh City in February 2019 by a group of dissidents who wanted to challenge the authoritarian, one-party government’s control of the publishing industry, and the government later that year launched a targeted campaign aimed at shutting down the publisher and intimidating its writers and associates.

Security forces questioned at least 100 people across the country, and searched the homes of at least a dozen, confiscating books on democracy and public policy printed by the publishing house, according to Amnesty International.

In June 2020, the Liberal Publishing House was awarded the Prix Voltaire for its “devotion and courage” by the Geneva-based International Publishers Association.

Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Richard Finney.

A well-known activist in Hanoi, Theu was arrested on June 24, 2020 with her sons Trinh Ba Tu and Trinh Ba Phuong on charges of “creating, storing, and disseminating information, documents, items and publications opposing the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” under Article 117 of Vietnam’s Penal Code.

The three family members had been outspoken in social media postings about the Jan. 9, 2020 clash in Dong Tam commune in which 3,000 police stormed barricaded protesters’ homes at a construction site about 25 miles south of the capital, killing a village elder.

They had also offered information to foreign embassies and other international groups to try to raise awareness of the incident.

As of Monday evening, Trinh Ba Khiem—Theu’s husband and Tu’s father—had received no formal notice of his family members’ trial, Khiem told RFA’s Vietnamese Service on May 4.

Khiem had previously sent a petition to the court, asking when the trial would be held, he said, adding, “In response to my questions, they brazenly told me that they would not inform me when the trial would take place, and that I shouldn’t expect to receive an invitation to the trial.”

He said that he would try to attend and report on the trial in any case, and that four lawyers—Dang Dinh Manh, Le Van Luan, Pham Le Quyen, and Ngo Anh Tuan—are scheduled to represent his wife and son at their trial.

Speaking to RFA, attorney Manh said that Khiem may find himself banned from the court anyway, as the family members of defendants tried in political cases are often barred from entry. The lawyers on Theu’s and Tu’s defense team believe strongly that their clients are innocent, he added.

Article 117, under which the defendants were charged, denies political freedoms guaranteed under Vietnam’s own Constitution he said.

“In addition, this Article is also contrary to the United Nations Convention of Human Rights, and in accordance with Vietnam’s existing regulations, when a domestic law clashes with an international law that Vietnam has signed and approved, priority should be given to the international law.”

“Therefore, our clients should be seen as innocent,” he said.

'We will continue to fight'

Facing the possibility that his wife and son may now be put into prison, Khiem appeared to remain calm.

“The Hoa Binh Court said that my wife could face a sentence of up to 15 years, as she has committed these crimes before,” Khiem said, referring to sentences served by Theu following convictions in earlier land rights-cases.

“My family has anticipated this. We will continue to fight, and we will remain calm when verdicts are handed down by this cruel communist regime,” he said.

In a May 4 statement, Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on Vietnam to immediately release Theu and her two sons and drop all charges against them, noting that the three have already been held in custody since June 2020.

Theu and her sons and husband Trinh Ba Khiem have engaged in numerous protests over land rights, human rights, and environmental protection over the last ten years, and have been repeatedly jailed and harassed by authorities for their activism, HRW said.

“Can Thi Theu and her family have been outspoken defenders of human rights in Vietnam,” said John Sifton, Asia advocacy director for the New York-based rights group. “The Vietnamese government should be listening to people like this brave family, not throwing them in jail,” Sifton said.

While all land is ultimately held by the state, land confiscations have become a flashpoint as residents accuse the government of pushing small landholders aside in favor of lucrative real estate projects, and of paying too little in compensation to farming families displaced by development.

Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Richard Finney.

“Vietnam opposes and resolutely rejects China's unilateral decision,” Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Deputy Spokesman Doan Khac Viet said at a press conference in Hanoi.

He said it violated Vietnam’s sovereignty over the Paracel Islands, the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea and the Declaration of Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea agreed by the Southeast Asian bloc in 2003. Viet added it “violates the Vietnam-China agreement on the basic principles guiding the settlement of sea-related issues.”

The comment came despite Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc telling visiting Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe on Monday to “not let the hostile forces to destroy Sino-Vietnam relations.” He emphasized the need for political and military cooperation.

The fishing ban, which runs through Sept. 16, is typically opposed by neighboring countries, including Vietnam and the Philippines, who reject China’s assertion of its jurisdiction over contested waters.

China says the ban is aimed at environmental conservation. China has unilaterally enforced it since 1995, mostly targeting Chinese vessels, but it has gone after foreign fishing boats violating the ban since at least 2002, Chinese government documents show.

A 2017 study by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, a program of the Washington D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, confirms that foreign fishing boats have on multiple occasions been targeted during the ban by Chinese enforcers in recent years.

That said, last year the three-and–a-half-month ban passed with relatively few recorded incidents involving non-Chinese boats and fisherman.

According to a report Tuesday from Chinese state-run press agency Xinhua, the ban covers “the Bohai Sea, the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the waters north of 12 degrees north latitude in the South China Sea.”

Xinhua described the unilateral ban as “part of China's efforts to protect marine fishery resources.”

China’s expansive maritime and territorial claims in the South China Sea often put it at odds with Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, and Taiwan, who all maintain competing claims. And while overfishing is rife in these waters by vessels of many nations, China is widely viewed as a key source of illegal and unregulated fishing.

Last year’s ban was met with protests from fishing associations in both Vietnam and the Philippines.

Xinhua reported that this year the China Coast Guard (CCG) will play a central role in enforcing the ban, noting that the CCG will work closely with other agencies to strengthen joint operations, communications, and intelligence-sharing.

The authorities will use patrols, surveillance technology, and other means to enforce the ban, Xinhua said.

This will be China’s first fishing ban since passing its new Coast Guard Law, which granted the CCG more freedom to use force in the defense of China’s maritime claims and attracted criticism from other regional governments.

In a written testimony submitted Thursday to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, German Marshall Fund Asia Program Director Bonnie Glaser explained that “China has advanced its vast territorial claims in the contested waters through a variety of gray zone tactics,” including the use of “non-military assets such as coast guard vessels and maritime militia.”

“Chinese fishing and coast guard vessels have also operated without permission in the EEZs of Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, and Indonesia,” Glaser said.

The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea defines an EEZ, or exclusive economic zone, as an area generally extending 200 nautical miles from shore, within which coastal countries retain special rights to exploration and use of marine resources, even though it is international territory.

Glaser added that in 2020, the CCG “not only maintained a persistent presence at Second Thomas Shoal, Luconia Shoals and Scarborough Shoal, but even increased the frequency of patrols during the pandemic.” She was referring to disputed features in the South China Sea where China has been involved in past standoffs with the Philippines and Malaysia.

Anna Vu of RFA Vietnamese contributed to this report.

Dong Tam village elder Le Dinh Kinh, 84, was shot and killed by police during the Jan. 9, 2020 raid on the village by 3,000 security officers intervening in a long-running dispute over a military airport construction site about 25 miles south of the capital.

Kinh’s sons, Le Dinh Chuc and Le Dinh Cong, were sentenced to death on Sept. 14 in connection with the deaths of three police officers who were killed in the clash, with other punishments handed out by the court including a life term in prison and other sentences ranging from six years to 15 months of probation.

On April 23, twelve of those receiving jail terms in the case were transferred to new facilities far distant from their homes in Hanoi, one family member told RFA.

Le Dinh Doanh, now serving a life term, was sent by authorities to the Yen Ha detention center in the mountainous province of Son La, said Doanh’s younger sister-in-law Nguyen Thi Duyen, who visited him at his new camp on Tuesday.

“His health is OK, but he looks a bit thin compared to how he was when I saw him at his appeal trial [in March],” Duyen said, adding that Doanh complained of soreness in his eyes and said he had contracted malaria because of the unsanitary conditions at Yen Ha.

“He said that he’s already getting better, though,” Duyen said, adding that her father Le Dinh Cong and uncle Le Dinh Chuc, both sentenced to death, are still being held at the No. 2 detention center in Thuong Tin district in Hanoi.

Others also moved

Doanh’s brothers Nguyen Quoc Tien and Bui Viet Hieu have meanwhile been transferred to the mountainous northern province of Yen Bai and central province of Nghe An, while Le Dinh Kinh’s adopted daughter Bui Thi Noi was moved to Bac Giang, a city in the country’s northeast, Duyen said she was told.

“Everyone has been transferred to a new detention center and has been separated from each other,” she said.

Duyen said Doanh told her he would try now to adjust to his new place of confinement and “not to be intimidated there,” adding that he has also promised to work for a reduction in his sentence so that he can return home as soon as possible.

On Friday, Duyen said, she and other family members will visit Cong and Chuc at their detention camp in Thuong Tin. Both men have refused to appeal their death sentences for murder, declaring themselves innocent of the crime.

While all land in Vietnam is ultimately held by the state, land confiscations have become a flashpoint as residents accuse the government of pushing small landholders aside in favor of lucrative real estate projects, and of paying too little in compensation to farming families displaced by development.

Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Richard Finney.

The People’s Court in the south-central coastal province of Phu Yen convicted Tran Thi Tuyet Dieu of violating article 117 of the Vietnamese penal code for “creating, storing and disseminating information and materials against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.”

“The trial lasted three hours, which is quite fast. The prosecution carried a sentence range of five to 12 years and I think the 8-years is pretty harsh,” Nguyen Kha Thanh, Dieu’s lawyer told RFA’s Vietnamese Service. 

“Ms. Dieu had a clean criminal record. This is her first offense,” Thanh said.

A former employee of a state-run newspaper, Dieu was arrested in August 2020, for managing a Facebook profile called “Tuyết Babel” and a YouTube account under the name “Tuyết Diệu Trần." According to the Vietnam News Agency, which cited the indictment, Dieu had used the websites to disseminate 25 news stories and nine videos deemed to be against the state.

She also stored seven other anti-state stories on her laptop and had published online written materials in support of democracy activist Nguyen Viet Dung, currently serving a six-year sentence for disseminating anti-state materials, including photos of himself in military garb in front of the flag of South Vietnam, defeated when the communist North unified the country in 1975.

After Dieu’s arrest, she was not allowed to contact anyone for months and could not meet her lawyer until November 2020.

“She pleaded innocent, saying that there were no victims of what she did. She did not accept the accusations as the trial failed to find a person harmed by her actions,” said the lawyer.

“But the court said her actions caused harm to the nation, a common tactic that allows them to not have to show any specific harmed individuals,” he said.

Thanh said as a regular citizen, Dieu’s writings were not done with the intention of opposing the government, and an individual’s writings are not strong enough to topple an entire government.

“In my view what she was doing was not in opposition to the authorities. I guess Ms. Dieu wrote those things because she was upset or something. She should have been charged with an administrative violation or for insulting an organization,” Thanh said.

Harsh forms of persecution

With Vietnam’s media all following Communist Party orders, “the only sources of independently-reported information are bloggers and independent journalists, who are being subjected to ever-harsher forms of persecution,” the press freedoms watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says in its 2021 Press Freedoms Index.

Measures taken against them now include assaults by plainclothes police, RSF said in its report, which placed Vietnam at 175 out of 180 countries surveyed worldwide, a ranking unchanged from last year.

“To justify jailing them, the Party resorts to the criminal codes, especially three articles under which ‘activities aimed at overthrowing the government,’ ‘anti-state propaganda’ and ‘abusing the rights to freedom and democracy to threaten the interests of the state’ are punishable by long prison terms,” the rights group said.

Vietnam’s already low tolerance of dissent deteriorated sharply last year with a spate of arrests of independent journalists, publishers, and Facebook personalities as authorities continued to stifle critics in the run-up to the ruling Communist Party Congress in January. But arrests continue in 2021.

Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service, Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

The Switzerland-based International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) submitted a report to The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) saying that the new laws “contain provisions incompatible with human rights law and standards as their vague language makes them prone to abuses.”

The report also detailed harsh sanctions and criminal penalties for violations of the vaguely written laws, which the ICJ said was not compatible with the principles of necessity and proportionality.

“Laws in Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam that do not comply with human rights law and standards have served to shrink the civic space in which the media operate,” said Sam Zarifi, the ICJ’s Secretary General in a press release.

“This stands to undermine the media’s crucial work in performing their investigative functions and their capacity to impart information to the public,” he said.

In the OHCHR submission, dated April 16, the ICJ cited two recently passed Cambodian laws which allow the government to stop or limit the free flow of information over the air, online or by any other means for reasons ranging from preventing public panic, stopping the spread of misinformation during an emergency situation, or “affect[ing] safety, national revenue, social order, dignity, culture, traditions and customs”

The ICJ also criticized two recently passed Vietnamese laws which allow the government to control content on social media, and websites and in written materials like newspapers in order to prevent “fake or false information” which “distorts or damages the prestige, honor or dignity” of others, to stop panic among the population, or is not suitable to the country’s interest.

It also said Thailand passed a law prohibiting “presentation or dissemination” of information on the pandemic that is either false or distorted to the point that it can cause misunderstanding of the emergency situation or could instigate fear.

The ICJ also showed how authorities in the three countries were able ot continue to abuse existing laws to target journalists and social media users during the pandemic.

“Although the ICJ recognizes the necessity to combat the spread of false information online to protect public health during the uncertainty of a pandemic, this objective can and must be carried out using the least intrusive means, rather than unnecessary and disproportionate measures like arrests, detentions, criminal prosecutions and onerous fines,” the ICJ said.

The submission urges the OHCHR to continue working with the three Southeast Asian governments to better protect journalists both in law and in practice, and to safeguard rights to freedom of expression and information.

It also called on the three states to stop harassing members of the media, drop charges against journalists and media workers detained for violations of domestic laws that are inconsistent with international human rights laws.

On Tuesday, the Paris-based press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) issued its 2021 Press Freedoms Index, which ranked Vietnam at 175 out of 180 countries surveyed worldwide, a ranking unchanged from last years.

Cambodia was also unchanged at 144, and RSF said Phnom Penh the “used the Covid-19 crisis to impose more censorship, blocking news sites, arresting journalists and proclaiming a state of emergency that gave it unprecedented power to censor and spy on the traditional and online media.”

In Thailand, which improved three spots to 137, “the government used the coronavirus crisis to issue a decree making the dissemination of information that is ‘false or capable of causing fear in the public’ punishable by up to five years in prison and allowing the authorities to ‘correct’ any published information,” RSF said.

Le Thi Binh, born in 1976, was arrested in December and charged with “abusing the rights to freedom and democracy to threaten the interests of the state” under Article 331 of Vietnam’s 2015 Penal Code. Her elder brother, Le Minh The, had completed a two-year jail term on the same charge in July.

Binh’s lawyer argued at trial for a reduced sentence of 12 months, Binh’s son Nguyen Chi Thanh told RFA after the trial, “But the prosecutor recommended two and a half years, and my mom was finally sentenced to two years in prison.”

Quoting the indictment against her, state media said Binh had used her Facebook page from October 2019 to November 2020 to livestream, post, and share posts “conveying bad and reactionary viewpoints and ideas” aimed at opposing and defaming Vietnam’s Communist Party and party and state leaders.

Binh had also “seriously insulted” Communist Vietnam’s founding leader Ho Chi Minh in her posts and called for a multiparty and pluralistic state to replace the current political regime, state media said.

Binh’s arrest and jailing is only the latest in a continuing series of arrests of independent journalists, publishers, and Facebook personalities after authorities began last year to stifle critics in the run-up to the ruling Communist Party Congress in January.

With Vietnam’s media tightly controlled by the country’s ruling Communist Party, “the only sources of independently-reported information are bloggers and independent journalists,” the press freedoms watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in its 2021 Press Freedoms Index.

Measures now taken against them include jailings under vague charges in the criminal code and assaults by plainclothes police, RSF said in its report, which placed Vietnam at 175 out of 180 countries surveyed worldwide, a ranking unchanged from last year’s.

Also ranked low in this year’s survey were Vietnam’s neighbors Laos at 172, Cambodia at 144, and Myanmar, whose ranking at 140 represents a one-point drop from last year’s score, RSF said.

Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Nguyen Thanh Nha, Doan Kien Giang, and Nguyen Phuoc Trung Bao—all writers for the popular Facebook page Clean Newspaper, which discusses Vietnamese social issues—were taken into custody in connection with an investigation into the activities of journalist Truong Chau Huu Danh, who was arrested in December.

Danh, another contributor to Clean Newspaper, had posted criticisms online of build-operate-transfer (BOT) highways that Vietnam has adopted in recent years, sparking rare protests over toll collections described by motorists as unfair.

He was detained by police in Can Tho, a province-level city in the country’s Mekong Delta, on charges of “abusing democratic rights to infringe upon the interests of other individuals and/or organizations,” under Article 331 of Vietnam’s 2015 Penal Code.

The Clean Newspaper page was taken offline, presumably by state authorities, at around the time of Danh’s Dec. 10, 2020 arrest and prosecution.

The decision this week to charge and arrest Nha, Giang, and Bao was approved by the People’s Procuracy of Can Tho City, and authorities raided the journalists’ homes and seized many items and documents related to the case under investigation, state media said.

Harsh forms of persecution

With Vietnam’s media all following Communist Party orders, “the only sources of independently-reported information are bloggers and independent journalists, who are being subjected to ever-harsher forms of persecution,” the press freedoms watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says in its 2021 Press Freedoms Index.

Measures taken against them now include assaults by plainclothes police, RSF said in its report, which placed Vietnam at 175 out of 180 countries surveyed worldwide, a ranking unchanged from last year’s.

“To justify jailing them, the Party resorts to the criminal codes, especially three articles under which ‘activities aimed at overthrowing the government,’ ‘anti-state propaganda’ and ‘abusing the rights to freedom and democracy to threaten the interests of the state’ are punishable by long prison terms,” the rights group said.

Also ranked low in this year’s survey were Vietnam’s neighbors Laos at 172, Cambodia at 144, and Myanmar, whose ranking at 140 represents a one-point drop from last year’s score, RSF said.

Vietnam’s already low tolerance of dissent deteriorated sharply last year with a spate of arrests of independent journalists, publishers, and Facebook personalities as authorities continued to stifle critics in the run-up to the ruling Communist Party Congress in January. But arrests continue in 2021.

Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Chinese government procurement contracts reveal that Sansha City — which administers China’s outposts in the Paracel and Spratly islands — has acquired or plans to acquire hardware, equipment, software, and materials from at least 25 different companies based in the U.S. and other countries. These items have applications in maritime law enforcement, information security, land and sea surveillance, and other areas.

For example, the city is currently set to acquire an unmanned surface vehicle — the maritime equivalent to an aerial drone — that includes components from several U.S. companies. Such a vehicle might be used to track and possibly even intercept vessels from rival South China Sea claimants like Vietnam and the Philippines.

In total, 10 Chinese party-state entities associated with Sansha City have acquired or currently plan to acquire up to 66 items worth over 6,540,000 yuan ($930,000) for use in the South China Sea, according to 13 government contracts and other associated documents. All of these contracts were signed between late 2016 and early 2021, with the majority of items coming from contracts inked in 2020.

The Chinese government’s long-standing practice of acquiring foreign technology to advance its strategic goals is a major source of tension in U.S.-China relations, with U.S. authorities turning to export controls and other tools to stem the tide of transfers. But according to experts that RFA spoke to, most of the items that Sansha City obtained from U.S. companies are unlikely to be covered by existing export control measures.

But there is one possible exception: the city appears to have acquired a counter-surveillance device from a U.S. company that could be used to protect China’s communications from unwelcome eavesdropping — including from intelligence specialists in the U.S. military who closely monitor China’s facilities in the South China Sea. This device and other equipment in the same product line have been supplied to a variety of U.S. government and military customers, contracting records show.

Scooping up foreign tech

China regards Sansha City as having jurisdiction over about 2 million square kilometers (800,000 square miles) of sea and land — the bulk of China’s claims in the South China Sea, where the People’s Republic is entangled in maritime and territorial disputes with Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Brunei.

From their headquarters on Woody Island in the Paracel Islands, the leaders of Sansha City manage day-to-day affairs on China’s remote outposts and oversee the implementation of long-term initiatives, working with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to develop infrastructure, defense capabilities, transportation, and communications.

RFA found that Sansha City has acquired or plans to acquire technology from at least 25 different companies based in the United States, Sweden, Austria, Italy, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Taiwan, with the majority of items coming U.S. companies.

And the 13 procurement documents from Sansha City that RFA identified may just be the tip of the iceberg. In 2020 alone, the city generated over 700 bidding announcements, contracts, and other similar documents that could contain evidence of technology transfer.

The city obtains these items through third-party Chinese companies. How exactly these Chinese companies acquire the technology from foreign companies, however, remains unclear.

RFA contacted every foreign company named in Sansha City’s procurement contracts. Of the companies that responded, several said that they do not directly oversee their operations in China, instead working through networks of distributors. Others stated that their contracts preclude them from providing information on specific sales, denied having any relationship with the companies supplying Sansha, or otherwise declined to comment on the story. As such, RFA could not independently verify transfers of technology from foreign companies to Sansha.

Zetron, which is headquartered in the United States and whose products Sansha obtained for use in maritime communications infrastructure, exemplifies this ambiguous procurement chain. Zetron said that it is “contractually prohibited from divulging specific customer or system information.” But it also said that “Zetron systems sold and installed in the Asia Pacific region are done so by Zetron Australasia Ltd., which is a separate legal entity from Zetron, Inc. and is headquartered in Australia. So any Zetron systems sold in that region are done so from there, versus Zetron, Inc. here in the U.S.”

Similarly, Airmar, whose weather monitoring device is to be used by Sansha in an unmanned surface vehicle, said that “our products are sold and resold through a distribution chain around the world” and that “Airmar does not always have the ability to track where our products have ultimately ended up.”

Many of the foreign companies are multinational corporations, some with sales offices or other subsidiaries in China, which further obfuscates the transfer process. For example, one of Sansha City’s contracts explicitly names the U.S. branch of Navico, a company headquartered in Norway with offices across the globe, including in China.

From maritime patrols to tracking turtles

The foreign technology acquired by Sansha City has applications in a number of different areas, all of which support China’s interests in the South China Sea.

About a quarter of the items are designated for use in maritime law enforcement vessels: patrol boats, shipborne boats (smaller craft that are deployed from larger ships), assault boats, and unmanned surface vehicles. Sansha City uses these vessels to patrol its jurisdiction and assert China’s claims at the expense of other claimants.

Other items are intended for less sensitive uses, such as environmental and ecological monitoring, but even those activities may ultimately help strengthen China’s capacity to control contested areas.

For example, according to a contract from 2017, the city acquired equipment from U.S.-based Strix Systems for a wireless self-organizing network, which was to be used alongside numerous components from Chinese companies for a sea turtle monitoring system in the Qilian Islets in the Paracel Islands. According to the contract, the city planned to integrate this sea turtle monitoring system into a broader monitoring platform on Tree Island, another China-occupied feature in the Paracels. According to reporting in PLA Daily, a paper run by the Chinese military, maritime militia forces use monitoring capabilities on Tree Island to surveil nearby waters and feed intelligence back to a PLA command center on Woody Island.

While in many cases the foreign technology is used in combination with Chinese components, in others Sansha City has procured entire systems from foreign companies. For instance, in 2020, the city’s hospital signed a contract with a Chinese company to acquire an automatic biochemical analyzer from Hitachi. This hospital serves PLA personnel stationed on Woody Island and coordinates 5G-based telemedicine services with the Hainan branch of the PLA General Hospital.

Look Out for unmanned vessels

Among the most consequential uses of foreign technology by Sansha City is in the L30 unmanned surface vehicle, sometimes called the “Look Out.”

The developer, Zhuhai Yunzhou Intelligent Science and Technology Co., Ltd, says the 7.5-meter-long vessel can travel up to 310 nautical miles, reach speeds of 40 knots, and operate autonomously or with a human crew. It also can mount an automatic weapon station or a precision missile launcher capable of hitting targets up to five kilometers away.

State-run broadcaster China National Radio reported in 2018 that the L30 is designed to carry out duties including reconnaissance, precision strikes, and guarding islands and reefs as well as their surrounding waters. It touted the vessel as a triumph of indigenous innovation: China’s “first maritime weapons platform jointly developed by a local private military industry company and a state-owned military industry research institute.”

And though Yunzhou claims to be a leader in the field of unmanned surface vehicles, the L30 ordered by Sansha City includes 1,635,000 yuan ($233,571) of key components from three U.S. companies and one Austrian company: an automatic identification system (AIS) transponder from the U.S. branch of Navico, a weather monitoring instrument from Airmar, two drives from Mercury Marine, and two diesel engines from the Austrian company Steyr Motors.

Yunzhou is due to deliver a single L30 to Sansha City’s coastguard force before July 2021, at a total cost of 5,102,600 yuan ($730,000), according to the contract. This coastguard force works with China’s maritime militia, the PLA, and the China Coast Guard (CCG) to surveil Sansha’s jurisdiction and uphold China’s maritime claims.

China National Radio reports that Yunzhou jointly developed the L30 with the Huazhong Photoelectric Technology Research Institute, which belongs to China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC), a major state-owned defense contractor. In December 2020, the U.S. Department of Commerce restricted exports to this research institute, also known as the CSSC 717th Research Institute, for “acquiring and attempting to acquire U.S.-origin items in support of programs for the People’s Liberation Army.”

This unmanned surface vehicle will be just the latest high-tech system deployed by China to monitor and control contest areas like the Paracel and Spratly islands.

According to J. Michael Dahm of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, China’s outposts in the Spratly Islands are bristling with communications and reconnaissance capabilities, which “provide the Chinese military and maritime law enforcement with the same level of knowledge and control in the Spratly Islands that they have in Chinese territorial waters.”

And some of these capabilities rely on foreign technology too. A recent investigation published in the Jamestown Foundation’s China Brief, for instance, revealed that Sansha City’s coastguard force uses a satellite communications system built around hardware from a U.S. defense contractor.

U.S. tech helping China keep secrets

RFA’s investigation also found that Sansha City is exploiting U.S. technology to safeguard sensitive state secrets.

Under a December 2018 contract, Landun Information Security Technology Co., Ltd. agreed to provide 640,500 yuan ($91,500) of communications security equipment to the Office of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Sansha Committee, which is the main decision-making body in Sansha and has overlapping leadership with the city’s PLA garrison.

The bundle of equipment includes two pieces of foreign technology: a camera detection device, the “Suresafe/VS-125,” which is likely from Suresafe, a Taiwanese company; and a digital phone and line analyzer, the “REI/DPA-7000,” which appears to be from Research Electronics International, a U.S. company.

A document available on Research Electronics International’s website describes the “DPA-7000 TALAN Telephone and Line Analyzer” as a “state-of-the-art capability to rapidly and reliably detect and locate illicit tampering and security vulnerabilities on both digital and analog telephone systems.” It adds that the device “provides a suite of tools in a single piece of equipment to accurately analyze phones and lines for faults and security breaches.”

In 2017, Research Electronics International launched an updated version of the TALAN, which has the same basic capabilities as the older DPA-7000. The newer TALAN 3.0 has applications in technical surveillance countermeasures, wiretap detection, eavesdropping detection, intelligence protection, surveillance equipment detection, and electronic surveillance detection, the company’s website says.

Publicly available contracting records show that Research Electronics International has supplied the TALAN line of products to numerous U.S. government and military customers. These include the Federal Bureau of Investigations, the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Navy, and the U.S Coast Guard — specifically the Coast Guard Counterintelligence Service.

This suggests that Sansha City might be leveraging counter-surveillance technology from a U.S. defense contractor to secure the city’s communications against U.S. signals intelligence collection efforts.

U.S. intelligence collection in the South China Sea region has long rankled the PLA, which maintains numerous sensitive facilities in the area, ranging from submarine bases to missile sites. Over the past 20 years, Chinese forces have repeatedly intercepted U.S. intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance platforms operating in or above the South China Sea. These interceptions have caused major incidents on several occasions, like in 2001 when a PLA fighter crashed into a U.S. EP-3 signals intelligence aircraft, killing the Chinese pilot and forcing the U.S. plane to perform an emergency landing in Chinese territory.

Tech transfer feeding tensions

According to experts, Sansha City’s efforts to acquire foreign technology mirror longstanding Chinese government practices, which have become a major source of tension in U.S.-China relations and emerged as a priority for the new Biden administration.

For several decades, China has systematically acquired technology from the United States, Japan, Germany, and other advanced economies in a bid to boost domestic industries and facilitate an ambitious military modernization program.

Emily Weinstein, a research analyst at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, told RFA that China acquires foreign technology through “legal, illegal, and extralegal means.”

“These can involve everything from M&A [mergers and acquisitions] and investments, to copyright infringement and traditional espionage activities, to gray areas like front organizations and United Front operations like professional associations and overseas scholar returnee organizations,” Weinstein said.

According to Ashley Feng, a specialist on U.S.-China economic relations, transfers of technology to China have security as well as economic implications, making them a major concern for U.S. authorities.

The U.S. government uses a range of tools to impede these transfers, including export control mechanisms. “Through the Export Administration Regulations, the Munitions List, the Commerce Control List, and the Entity List, the U.S. government can control what technology is exported out of the United States both by where the export will end up and/or whose hands it will end up in,” said Feng.

In recent years, the U.S. government has pursued export control reforms aimed at China and repeatedly placed restrictions on specific Chinese entities. For instance, since August 2020, the U.S. Department of Commerce has repeatedly restricted exports to Chinese companies for their roles in building artificial islands, militarizing occupied features, and supporting coercion against other claimants in the South China Sea.

Experts told RFA that the items acquired from U.S. companies by Sansha City are unlikely to be covered by existing export control measures. “At first blush these appear to be technologies just below the controls threshold,” explained James Mulvenon, director of intelligence integration at defense contracting firm SOS International, who described these types of transfers as a “vexing problem” for the U.S. government.

“But the civilian nature of the purchase is simply part of the Potemkin nature of the Sansha political entity, which was only created to give a demilitarized, civilian cover for what is more accurately a military occupation of disputed possessions,” Mulvenon said.

But there is one potential outlier: the countersurveillance device that Sansha City appears to have acquired from Research Electronic International. According to the company’s website, the DPA-7000 TALAN Telephone and Line Analyzer falls under export control classification number (ECCN) 5A992.b, which suggests that relevant U.S. authorities may view the device as a sensitive item subject to certain export restrictions on national security grounds, though this particular ECCN is outdated thanks to reforms in 2016.

The U.S. Department of Commerce did not respond to RFA’s request for comment.

Research Electronics International told RFA that “all of our sales, throughout the world, are made in full compliance with the law and US export regulations” and that “we have no records of the companies you are inquiring about and we have not made any sales to Sansha City.”

If the company’s statement is accurate, then Sansha City may have acquired the DPA-7000 through illicit means. According to Mulvenon, “China uses a wide array of strategies to get this tech, but the sensitive nature of the South China Sea issue makes it more likely for them to use cutouts and front companies and then divert the technology to the real destination and purpose.”

Sansha City’s acquisitions of foreign technology, licit or otherwise, appear poised to continue unabated. In late February, the city signed a procurement contract for three maritime law enforcement patrol boats, which are slated to use outboard engines, communications equipment, night vision devices, and other components from companies in the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Japan.

That means, unless the U.S. government and other relevant authorities take action, China’s efforts to dominate the South China Sea will continue to be supported by foreign technology.

Nguyen Tuong Thuy, an independent journalist and former RFA Vietnamese Service blogger, was moved April 15 from the Bo La detention center in Binh Duong province to the An Phuoc detention center in the same province.

After visiting Thuy at An Phuoc on Saturday, Nguyen Thi Lan wrote on her Facebook page that her husband appeared to have lost weight and looked haggard and frail. He was also uncharacteristically absent-minded, Lan wrote.

“While talking with me, he often stuttered and easily forgot things. It often took him so time to think before saying something,” she said.

Thuy, 71, was older than many of the other inmates held at Bo La and was often last in line when the prison canteen opened for purchases of food, a fellow prisoner who was released to An Phuoc ahead of Thuy told family members.

Thuy was also hindered in performing daily tasks at Bo La by an injury to his hand suffered when police wrenched his phone away from him at the time of his arrest, sources said.

Lan said that Thuy told her conditions are better at An Phuoc, where he now shares a cell containing a television, fan, and tiled floor with two other prisoners—an inmate from Vietnam’s Central Highlands and a Hoa Hao Buddhist, a religious group often harassed by communist authorities.

Lan wrote that she hopes her husband’s health will now improve at his new prison.

Thuy, who had blogged on civil rights and freedom of speech issues for RFA’s Vietnamese Service for six years, was sentenced on Jan. 5 with two other bloggers—like Thuy members of the Vietnam Independent Journalists’ Association—who were handed lengthy jail terms at the same time.

'Anti-state writings'

Arrested in May 2020, Thuy was indicted along with Pham Chi Dung and Le Huu Minh Tuan on Nov. 10 for “making, storing, and disseminating documents and materials for anti-state purposes" under Article 117 of Vietnam’s Penal Code.

Sentenced with Thuy, Pham Chi Dung was given a 15-year prison term, while Le Huu Minh Tuan was jailed for 11 years. Dung was transferred from Bo La to An Phuoc on March 29.

Thuy later refused to appeal his sentence, tearing up a petition form given to him after prison guards told him what to write on it, Thuy’s lawyer told RFA in an earlier report.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) ranked Vietnam 175 out of 180 in its 2020 World Press Freedom Index. About 25 journalists and bloggers are being held in Vietnam’s jails, “where mistreatment is common,” the Paris-based watchdog group said.

Vietnam’s already low tolerance of dissent deteriorated sharply last year with a spate of arrests of independent journalists, publishers, and Facebook personalities as authorities continued to stifle critics in the run-up to the ruling Communist Party Congress in January. But arrests continue in 2021.

Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Nguyen Tuong Thuy, an independent journalist and former RFA Vietnamese Service blogger, was moved April 15 from the Bo La detention center in Binh Duong province to the An Phuoc detention center in the same province.

Thuy, 71, was older than many of the other inmates held at Bo La, was often last in line when the prison canteen opened for purchases of food, and was hindered in performing daily tasks by an injury to his hand suffered when police wrenched his phone away from him at the time of his arrest.

Speaking to RFA’s Vietnamese Service, Thuy’s wife Nguyen Thi Lan said she learned her husband had been transferred when she called a receptionist at Bo La whose phone number she was given on a previous visit.

“I called the receptionist every day, and today she told me that my husband had been transferred to the An Phuoc detention center at 10:00 a.m.,” Lan said, adding, “He hasn’t called home yet, however.”

Lan said she was relieved to hear that Thuy had been transferred.

“I’m very happy, as many inmates who have returned from An Phuoc have said that the food and accommodations there are very good.”

Lan said she would prepare food to bring to her husband, and then take a flight from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City and a bus to Binh Duong to visit Thuy on Friday.

Thuy, who had blogged on civil rights and freedom of speech issues for RFA’s Vietnamese Service for six years, was sentenced on Jan. 5 with two other bloggers—like Thuy members of the Vietnam Independent Journalists’ Association—who were handed lengthy jail terms at the same time.

'Anti-state writings'

Arrested in May 2020, Thuy was indicted along with Pham Chi Dung and Le Huu Minh Tuan on Nov. 10 for “making, storing, and disseminating documents and materials for anti-state purposes" under Article 117 of Vietnam’s Penal Code.

Sentenced with Thuy, Pham Chi Dung was given a 15-year prison term, while Le Huu Minh Tuan was jailed for 11 years. Dung was transferred from Bo La to An Phuoc on March 29.

Thuy later refused to appeal his sentence, tearing up a petition form given to him after prison guards told him what to write on it, Thuy’s lawyer told RFA in an earlier report.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) ranked Vietnam 175 out of 180 in its 2020 World Press Freedom Index. About 25 journalists and bloggers are being held in Vietnam’s jails, “where mistreatment is common,” the Paris-based watchdog group said.

Vietnam’s already low tolerance of dissent deteriorated sharply last year with a spate of arrests of independent journalists, publishers, and Facebook personalities as authorities continued to stifle critics in the run-up to the ruling Communist Party Congress in January. But arrests continue in 2021.

Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Chau Vu. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Nguyen Van Son Trung was detained April 9 following the arrest of ethnic Cham poet Dong Chuong Tu, who was released on April 10 after being held and questioned for three days.

A third friend, Tran Duc Tin, was arrested on April 10 but was also freed after several days of questioning.

All three had discussed on Facebook the procedure for nominating independent candidates for election to Vietnam’s National Assembly and local People’s Councils, a political process tightly controlled by the country’s ruling Communist Party, which carefully vets named candidates for Party approval.

Trung was handcuffed by police on his arrest and was questioned for five days before his release, Trung told RFA’s Vietnamese Service.

“During those five days, they asked me to verify the posts I had put up on my Facebook account,” Trung said.

“They also wanted me to explain the discussions my friends and I had held on our group chat, including how to self-nominate candidates for People’s Councils at different levels,” he said, adding that they had understood that citizens age 21 and older could self-nominate as council members.

Trung said that police also questioned him about other Facebook groups and whether he was connected to the U.S.-based Viet Tan opposition party, a group designated by Vietnamese authorities as a terrorist organization, or Vietnamese rights lawyer Nguyen Van Dai, now living in exile in Germany.

Physically attacked

A police officer slapped Trung on his head on his arrival at the police station, and another slapped him three times on his ears during questioning, Trung said, adding that his interrogators came from three separate security departments and refused his request to see a lawyer.

Speaking to RFA, Trung said that the five days of questioning had left him anxious and scared, and that he had been asked at the end to sign a document written by his interrogators testifying that he had worked with them voluntarily and had not been physically or mentally harmed.

“I also had to promise to ‘work with them’ again if they asked me to, and I had to promise to write my stories in future in an ‘honest and objective manner,’” Trung said.

“Those five days were so stressful that I decided just to sign all those papers so that I could return home,” he said.

Trung’s five days of detention violated Vietnamese law, which stipulates that police cannot temporarily detain anyone without a temporary detention warrant unless they provide in writing a specific reason to the person in detention and their family.

Temporary detention should also not last more than 12 hours unless “absolutely necessary” and must not last longer than 24 hours, Vietnamese law says.

During the past three months, police have arrested two other self-nominated assembly candidates, Tran Quoc Khanh and Le Trong Hung, both from Hanoi, for “disseminating anti-State materials,” even though the central government has openly discussed an initiative to “open doors wider for self-nominated candidates.”

Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Chau Vu. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Prior to his April 10 release, Nguyen Quoc Huy, who goes by the pen name Dong Chuong Tu, had been missing since April 7, after police in Thuan Bac district in the country’s southern coastal Binh Thuan province asked him to come to the station for a meeting while he was in the area for a visit.

“On Tuesday [April 6,] Dong Chuong Tu visited his hometown in Ma Lam to handle some business. Then he met some friends there that he hadn’t seen in a long time,” a friend of Tu, who requested anonymity for security reasons, told RFA’s Vietnamese Service on April 9.

“On April 7, he was ‘invited’ to have a meeting with the police. I don’t know whether he was actually invited or if they took him in, but he texted a friend saying he was detained in the Ma Lam police station,” Tu’s friend said.

Another of Tu’s friends told RFA that Tu often writes poems and media articles and was involved with charitable causes, such as advocating for assistance to help Ma Lam’s poor, including helping to provide a new public library for the town.

RFA contacted the Ma Lam police station on April 9, but the officer who picked up the phone there denied having any knowledge of Tu’s case, while an officer at the provincial-level police department said his department was unaware of local-level cases.

Following his release, Tu wrote that evening on Facebook that he had returned home safe and sound, and he thanked the Cham community for their support. In a later post, he said that he had signed police documents to secure a quicker release including affidavits that verified his travels abroad since 2019, his correspondence with international media, and the status of his self-nomination for a National Assembly seat, his support of the Cham ethnic minority community in a land dispute in Ninh Thuan province, as well as acknowledgement that his passport had been confiscated.

Candidacy

Writing on social media, Tu had expressed his hopes to represent fellow members of Vietnam’s ethnic Cham minority in the country’s National Assembly.

He first declared his candidacy in a June 2020 Facebook post, writing, “Though I know that I’ll be eliminated in the very first rounds, I still decided to nominate myself, as I see most of the National Assembly members who come from my ethnicity are there only for show, but actually do nothing.”

“They are like bonsai trees,” Tu wrote.

He then updated his quest for candidacy in a cryptic February 2021 Facebook post.

“Binh Thuan province has only seven seats, of which three area already reserved for representatives from the central authorities in Hanoi. How can I manage to get one of the remaining four? To be safe and sound, I’ll quit the game, my dear Cham fellows,” he wrote.

The nomination of candidates for election to Vietnam’s National Assembly is a political process tightly controlled by the country’s ruling Communist Party, which carefully vets named candidates for Party approval.

RFA was unable to confirm whether Tu has formally submitted his application for candidacy in the election scheduled for May 23.

Friends detained

During the time that Tu was in custody for interrogation, Binh Thuan police arrested two of his friends, Tran Duc Tin and Nguyen Van Son Trung.

Tin was attending a training class in Ho Chi Minh City on the afternoon of April 10 when police took him in. He was released Monday.

Police arrested Trung April 9 in Binh Thuan. He remains in custody and his family has not received any information about his case.

“My husband was arrested April 9. They called him to come outside, so I don’t know where the arrest happened,” Trung’s wife, Ms. Hien told RFA.

“I only heard from my neighbors that the police had searched for him at home. Before he left, my husband asked the kids to tell me that he was going to eat out at a restaurant. But I don’t know if he really went to the restaurant or somewhere else,” Hien said.

“I don’t know when my husband was arrested. After I came home at around 5 p.m. and heard the story from my neighbors, I called my husband to ask where he was. He only said he was taking care of business outside. His friends told me that he had been arrested at 6 p.m.,” she said.

According to Hien, several men dressed in plainclothes visited her home the next day and identified themselves as policemen. They asked Trung’s mother to go to the station to give her son some advice, but she refused.

After the men left, Trung’s family received a phone call from Trung, who only said he was in temporary detention at the Binh Thuan police station.

RFA was unable to confirm why Tin and Trung were arrested, but one of Mr. Trung’s friends told RFA that both men were members of a chat group that discussed Tu’s candidacy for a seat in the National Assembly.

In one of Tu’s Facebook posts, he apologized to Nguyen Van Son Trung and his wife for texting Trung while he was in police custody.

Trung’s detention goes against Vietnamese law, which stipulates that police cannot temporarily detain anyone without a temporary detention warrant unless they provide in writing a specific reason to the person in detention and their family.

Temporary detention should also not last more than 12 hours unless “absolutely necessary” and must not last longer than 24 hours, Vietnamese law says.

During the past three months, police have arrested two other self-nominated assembly candidates from Hanoi, Tran Quoc Khanh and Le Trong Hung, for “disseminating anti-State materials,” even though the central government has openly discussed an initiative to “open doors wider for self-nominated candidates”.

Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Eugene Whong.