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Highlighting Vietnam’s Solzhenitsyns and Havels

By Demdigest on July 23, 2010

Vietnam should liberalize its political system and permit freedom of expression, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has told Hanoi’s communist authorities, highlighting concerns about the regime’s crackdown on democracy activists and Internet access.
“Vietnam, with its extraordinary dynamic population, is on the path to becoming a great nation with an unlimited potential. And that is [read full story]

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Veteran dissident’s smuggled message demands democracy for Vietnam

By Demdigest on May 13, 2010

Thich Quang Do, Vietnam’s veteran advocate for democracy and human rights, has been a prisoner of conscience for over 28 years, the Oslo Freedom Forum notes. The forum this week presented a recently-filmed interview with him at a congressional ceremony on Capitol Hill.
Thich Quang Do’s testimony, filmed exclusively for the 2010 forum, is available on [read full story]

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Vietnam confirms sentence of leading dissident

By Demdigest on May 11, 2010

An appeals court today upheld a prison sentence for Vietnam’s leading human rights lawyer as well as an “unusually harsh” sentence for an associate charged with promoting democracy.
The United States Congress may have designated May 11 as Vietnam Human Rights Day but that clearly cuts little ice with the country’s communist authorities.
U.S.-trained human rights attorney [read full story]

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Democratic advantage obscures ’significant setbacks’ and autocratic legitimacy

By Michael Allen on March 3, 2010

The apparently stable advantage of democracy over autocracy disguises worrying erosion in the quality of democracy, a new analysis suggests.
Democracy has not lost its normative appeal, but even established democracies have experienced “significant setbacks” in the freedoms of assembly, association and the press, as well as declines in political participation, civil liberties and social capital, [read full story]

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Vietnam jails democracy advocate in campaign to stifle dissent

By Michael Allen on February 5, 2010

Vietnam’s communist authorities have jailed democracy advocates Tran Khai Thanh Thuy and her husband, Do Ba Tan, the latest in a series of prosecutions that has seen at least activists jailed over recent months.
Thuy has been an active dissident since 2006, organizing workers and farmers to resist government-sanctioned land confiscations. She also contributes to an [read full story]

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US will promote Internet freedom, digital democracy

By Michael Allen on January 21, 2010

The US Government will fund and facilitate innovative approaches to expanding internet freedom and access, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said this morning. Activists like those in Iran’s Green movement were “redefining how technology is used to spread truth and expose injustice”.
Just as samizdat literature undermined communism – “words that pierced the concrete and concertina [read full story]

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Synchronized sentencing again hits Vietnamese and Chinese democracy activists

By Michael Allen on January 20, 2010

The one-day trial of four Vietnamese democracy advocates ended today as a Hanoi court handed down unusually harsh sentences. [read full story]

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Prosecutions confirm Vietnam’s reversion to more closed society

By Michael Allen on January 19, 2010

Vietnamese democracy and human rights activists go on trial tomorrow, charged with conspiring to overthrow the communist regime. The ruling Communist Party equates the advocacy of political pluralism with treason.
The court has banned the use of any recording devices or computers by media attending the trial. “These are the regulations of this court,” said a [read full story]

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Rule of law: democracy’s bottom-line

By Michael Allen on January 13, 2010

What do Liu Xiaobo, Tran Anh Kim, Evgeny Zhovtis, Emin Milli, and Adnan Hajizade have in common?
Find out here.

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Democracy on trial in China and Vietnam

By Michael Allen on December 23, 2009

Are Vietnam and China coordinating repressive tactics as part of their efforts to build closer ties? It’s not an entirely flippant question on a day that sees criminal charges brought against each country’s leading democracy activists.
Diplomats were today barred from the trial of dissident Liu Xiao-bo when it started in Beijing. Liu has advocated democratic [read full story]

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