BANGKOK: Vietnam is targeting ordinary social media users for posts criticising the state in an expanding crackdown on dissent, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on April 22.
Vietnam, a one-party state, has long sentenced bloggers and human rights activists to hefty jail terms, but now even those with no appreciable public profiles risk arrest if they voice a grievance against communist party officials, HRW said in a report.
Members of the public are being targeted through an expansion of the scope of article 331 of the penal code, which centres on the "infringement of state interests", the report says.
Between 2018 and February 2025, Vietnamese courts convicted and sentenced at least 124 people to harsh prison terms under article 331, according to HRW.
In the six years to 2017, only 28 were sentenced under equivalent laws, the report said.
Vietnamese authorities "abuse the... law not only to silence prominent activists and whistleblowers, but to retaliate against ordinary people who complain about poor services or police abuse," said Patricia Gossman, associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
"Article 331 is the government's handy tool to infringe upon the basic rights of Vietnamese citizens."
Harassment, intimidation
Among those imprisoned under the article is Vu Thi Kim Hoang, a seamstress who allowed her partner to use her laptop at her home, where he discussed political issues on social media. For hosting him, she was jailed for two and half years.
Another is Dao Ba Cuong, who livestreamed a protest he staged inside his house after his son died in police custody in 2022. He was handed a two-year jail term a year later.
Others thrown in jail include Nay Y Blang, who reportedly hosted prayer gatherings at his home for members of the Evangelical Church of Christ, a religious group that the Vietnamese government does not recognise.
He is serving a prison term of four and a half years for organising meetings to "gather forces... incite secession, self-rule, and establish a separate state for ethnic minorities in the Central Highlands", state media said after his trial in January last year.
Prior to his jailing, Nay Y Blang, from the ethnic minority Ede group, advocated for religious freedom and met foreign diplomats to discuss the issue, HRW said.
The US-based Vietnamese founder of the Evangelical Church of Christ, who goes by the name Pastor Aga, told AFP that Nay Y Blang set up the group "in service of God and his personal religious beliefs".
"Blang is a very nice person and loyal to God. He is not against the Vietnamese communist administration. He did not want to set up a separate state," he said.
Unrecognised independent religious groups face constant surveillance, harassment, and intimidation, and their followers are subject to forced renunciation of faith, detention, interrogation, torture and prosecution, HRW said.
"The Vietnamese government should immediately revoke article 331, release all those detained and imprisoned for exercising their basic human rights," the HRW report concluded.
Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to a request for comment from AFP. – AFP
