January 20, 2009
Vietnam’s authoritarian government has made a habit in recent years of cracking down on dissent around Tet, the lunar new year festival that starts next week. This year is no exception.
A court in Ho Chi Minh City last week sentenced Mennonite Pastor Nguyen Thi Hong to three years in jail, ostensibly for unpaid debts owed by her deceased first husband. Her lawyer said the debts were already paid. Ms. Nguyen’s real “crime” was more likely her association with members of an unrecognized branch of the Mennonite church who have engaged in social activism Hanoi views as a threat. Authorities in the past have tried to shut down at least one of the unauthorized branch’s “house” churches.
Free speech is also under assault. Two newspaper editors were fired this month by their state-owned newspapers after they protested the prosecution of reporters in cases stemming from exposés of abuses in the Transportation Ministry in 2006. No reason was given for their dismissal. Although one of the reporters — who were tried in October — has now been released from jail early, foreign observers worry that the cases are discouraging other reporters from pursuing similar stories.
All this coincides with Hanoi’s continuing crackdown on political bloggers in a policy announced last month that bars online discussion of current events. This marks an expansion of Hanoi’s attempt to cut off forms of communication that have facilitated pro-democracy activism, especially the Block 8406 movement of 2006.
The latest crackdown on free speech is a reminder that even as power changes hands in the U.S., Vietnamese are stuck with the same old regime in Hanoi. One of the many foreign-policy challenges of the new Obama Administration will be to formulate a policy that supports the Vietnamese people’s efforts to effect their own political change.