Bloggers and Netizens Behind Bars: Restrictions on Internet Freedom in Vietnam
FIDH -
7 February 2013
In a
new joint report released today, FIDH and its member organization, the Vietnam
Committee on Human Rights, call on the Vietnamese government to end its
escalating assault on freedom of expression and its criminalization of bloggers
and netizens.
The 42-page report, entitled
“Bloggers and Netizens Behind Bars: Restrictions on Internet Freedom in Vietnam”,
highlighted the Internet as an increasingly popular source of independent news
and a platform for civic activism in Vietnam, home to the region’s fastest
growing population of Internet users. Bloggers and human rights defenders
increasingly resort to the Internet to voice their political opinions, expose
corruption, and draw attention to land-grabbing and other official abuses of
power. At the same time, Internet users in Vietnam also face long-standing
draconian restrictive legislation, policies and practices, while the government
has intensified its crackdown on freedom of expression, both online and offline,
since 2010.
The FIDH and the VCHR have documented 32 bloggers and netizens currently
detained, charged, and/or sentenced to prison terms in Vietnam for their
peaceful online dissent or criticisms of government policies. Their prison terms
range from two to 16 years. In a series of unfair trials over the past 12 months
alone (January 2012 - January 2013), 22 bloggers and netizens were sentenced to
a total of 133 years in prison and 65 years probationary detention for their
peaceful online activism. 17 of those currently behind bars, including three
women, were sentenced under the draconian Article 88 of the Criminal Code, which
carries a maximum penalty of 20 years’ imprisonment for the ill-defined offense
of “anti-State propaganda.” In one recent trial on 9 January 2013 alone, 13
people were sentenced to a total of over 100 years in prison solely for the
peaceful exercise of their freedom of expression.
“Article
88 and other ‘national security’ provisions of the Criminal Code fly in the face
of Vietnam’s obligations under international human rights law,”
said Souhayr Belhassen, FIDH President.
“Instead
of engaging in the futile exercise of gagging the Internet, it should
immediately end the practice of making speech a crime and overhaul its
repressive legal framework to ensure respect and protection of the right to
freedom of expression, regardless of medium.”
The Vietnamese authorities at all levels routinely subject bloggers and netizens
who dare to criticise them to arbitrary detention, harassment, intimidation,
assaults and violations of fair trial rights. The report also profiles nine
bloggers and their peaceful writings on the Internet. Prominent blogger Nguyen
Van Hai (aka Dieu Cay) and members of the Club of Free Journalists, whose online
writings criticised Article 88 of the Criminal Code, were ironically detained
under the same article and sentenced harshly on 24 September 2012 to prison
terms of up to 12 years. Although they protested their innocence, the conviction
of Dieu Cay and Ta Phong Tan was upheld on appeal on 28 December 2012.
In September 2012, the assault on Internet freedom was taken to a new height
when the Vietnamese prime minister himself issued an order to punish criticisms
of the Communist Party and the government, targeting by name three dissident
blogs, including the prominent Danlambao (Citizens’ Journalism) blog, which
publishes a wide range of news, including those focused on politics and human
rights.
The new draft Internet Decree currently under consideration is fatally flawed
and inconsistent with international human rights law and standards. If adopted
in its current form the Decree would oblige Internet companies and other
providers of information to Internet users in Vietnam to cooperate with the
government in enforcing the prohibition of a range of vaguely-defined acts of
expression. Article 5 of the Decree prohibits vague acts as such as “abusing the
provisions and use of the internet and information on the web” to “oppose the
Socialist Republic of Vietnam”; “undermining the grand unity of the people” and
“undermining the fine customs and traditions of the nation”. Article 25 requires
the filtering of any information on the Internet based on the interpretation
that such information is amongst the “prohibited acts” outlined in Article 5.
“As
Vietnam steps up censorship by new laws and regulations, it is also intensifying
Police repression, imprisonment, intimidation and even sexual assaults on young
bloggers to frighten them into silence and self-censorship”,
said VCHR President Vo Van Ai. “But
it is too late. Through the Internet, a culture of protest is emerging in
Vietnam. These bloggers and netizens are not “hostile forces” seeking to
overthrow the regime by “peaceful evolution” as Hanoi claims. They are
Vietnamese patriots who are using new technologies to call for their people’s
legitimate freedoms and rights. Vietnam cannot suppress this movement simply by
locking bloggers and netizens behind bars”.