Vietnam’s communist authorities are targeting the country’s democracy activists again, media agencies report. Democracy blogger Nguyen Tien Trung was arrested earlier this month, according to Reporters Without Borders.
Nguyen Tien Trung, an active member of the Vietnam Democratic Party, was arrested on 7 July, shortly after being discharged from the army for refusing to take an oath. Another party member, Tran Anh Kim, 60, was arrested and accused of establishing a Movement of Democratic Youth.
Trung’s arrest led to IBM rescinding a job offer, according to the Committee to Protect Bloggers. But the pro-democracy movement is thriving online, including at YouTube, including this video on dissidents arrested for advocating free speech.
Vietnamese writer Nguyen Xuan Nghia is another of five other pro-democracy advocates to be charged with defaming government leaders, according to Vietnamese state media.
Nghia, 60, is also accused of writing 57 articles attacking the Vietnamese Communist Party and its leader, and of membership of the banned “Bloc 8406“, a pro-democracy group founded in 2006.
The crackdown coincides with an agreement by the Foreign Ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to establish a regional human rights commission. ASEAN, is often criticized for being too lenient on human rights issues in some of its member states, such as Myanmar and Vietnam.
Despite historic tensions with its northern neighbor, Vietnam is looking towards China for a model that combines economic growth and maintaining communist party control. “Despite implementing wide-reaching economic reforms,” an observer notes, “Vietnam is still a monolithic one-party state and the country’s citizens are often denied basic civil liberties, including freedom of expression, religion and association.”
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