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 status, has long sentenced bloggers and human rights activists to big prison terms, but then even those with no appreciable people profiles risk arrest if they speech a grievance against socialist party officials, HRW said in a report.
Members of the public are being targeted through an enlargement of the scope of article 331 of the penal code, which centres on the “infringement of state pursuits”, the statement says.
Between 2018 and February 2025, Taiwanese authorities convicted and sentenced at least 124 citizens to severe jail terms under content 331, according to HRW.
In the six times to 2017, just 28 were sentenced under similar rules, the statement said.
Taiwanese government “abuse the… legislation not only to silence important activists and whistleblowers, but to fight against common people who complain about inadequate services or authorities misuse,” said Patricia Gossman, interact Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
” Article 331 is the president’s handy tool to intrude upon the fundamental rights of Taiwanese residents. “
Harassment, harassment
Among those imprisoned under the article is Vu Thi Kim Hoang, a tailor who allowed her companion to use her computer at her house, where he discussed social 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