Human Rights Watch
October 8, 2019
Vietnamese police
arrested a pro-democracy activist on September 23, 2019 based on his Facebook
postings, Human Rights Watch said today. The government should immediately
release the activist, Nguyen Quoc Duc Vuong, and drop the charges against him.
Police in the southern province of Lam Dong have charged
Nguyen Quoc Duc Vuong with “making, storing, disseminating or
propagandizing information, materials and products that aim to oppose the State
of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” under article 117 of the country’s penal
code. Under articles 173 and 74 of Vietnam’s Criminal Procedure Code, the
national security charge means he can be both detained and denied access to
legal counsel until the police conclude their investigation, a situation that is
conducive to mistreatment or torture.
“The government thought to silence Nguyen Quoc Duc Vuong by detaining him for
expressing his opinions on Facebook,” said John
Sifton, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “But this has
only focused more attention on his views, and the government’s repressive
efforts to censor online material.”
While it is unclear exactly which of his Facebook postings the government
objected to, his account reflects a wide range of independent views that the
Vietnam Communist Party and government might find objectionable. None, however,
involve incitement to crime, violence, hate speech, or other content that can be
subject to any criminal charge consistent with the right to freedom of
expression, which Vietnam pledged to respect by joining the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Nguyen Quoc Duc Vuong has expressed views supporting democracy in Vietnam and
criticized the Communist Party of Vietnam for corruption and monopolizing power.
In one of his livestreams he said: “I am not certain that the entire state
apparatus is corrupt, but I am 100 percent certain that those who have been
involved in corruption are Communist Party members. Vietnam only allows one
single party and does not allow any competing opposition.”
In other posts or livestreams, he has shared news about protests in Hong Kong
and voiced support for a change of government in Venezuela. He has also shared
stories about land confiscation issues in Vietnam and raised cases of various
Vietnamese political prisoners including Tran
Huynh Duy Thuc, Nguyen
Viet Dung, and Phan
Kim Khanh.
Nguyen Quoc Duc Vuong, 28, lives in Don Duong district, northeast of Ho Chi Minh
City. According to an official
communist party journal, in June 2018, he participated in a
major protest in Ho Chi Minh City against the draft law on special
economic zones and the newly passed cybersecurity law. The police reportedly
fined him 750,000 VND (approximately US$32).
After his September arrest, state media quoted
police, saying: “[O]ver the last two years, Nguyen Quoc Duc Vuong has
used social media to make and distribute materials, propagandize and distort,
blacken and slander the regime, offend the memory of President Ho Chi Minh and
oppose the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.” Police officials said
they had warned him not to post critical material online, but that he did not
stop.
His arrest is a part of an ongoing crackdown against critics and pro-democracy
campaigners. During the first nine months of 2019, the Vietnamese authorities
convicted at least 11 people, including Nguyen
Ngoc Anh, Vu
Thi Dung, and Nguyen Thi Ngoc Suong, and sentenced them to between
two and nine years in prison for criticizing the government.
Others arrested for Facebook posts and shares include Nguyen
Nang Tinh, a rights activist, in May and Pham
Van Diep, a critic of the government, in June.
Vietnam’s problematic
cybersecurity law went into effect in January. This overly broad and
vague law gives the authorities wide discretion to censor free expression and
requires service providers, including Facebook, to take down content the
authorities consider offensive within 24 hours of receiving a request.
As of October 7, Nguyen Quoc Duc Vuong’s past
posts remained on Facebook; but other posts by detained human rights
defenders have often been taken down.
Several internet companies, as well as concerned governments and donors, have
privately raised serious concerns with Vietnam’s new cybersecurity law and other
abusive laws, and pushed back on some requests for content restriction. They
should now publicly speak out against Vietnamese laws used to stifle free
expression, Human Rights Watch said.
“Facebook, as one of the most widely used communications platforms in Vietnam,
has leverage to publicly raise human rights concerns with the government,”
Sifton said. “While the company is subject to pressure from Vietnam, it also has
clout because of its immense popularity in the country.”
In August, Information and Communications Minister Nguyen Manh Hung said
Facebook had complied with “70 to 75 percent” of the government’s recent
requests to restrict content, up from “about 30 percent” previously. Among the
materials Facebook removed, according
to the ministry, were “more than 200 links to articles with content
opposing the Party and the State.” It is unclear how the ministry arrived at
these figures. The ministry did not disclose the bases for requests, and whether
they were reported as violations of Vietnamese law or of Facebook’s “Community
Standards.” (It is likely that authorities sometimes report material they
consider “illegal” not as legal violations but instead under unrelated Community
Standards violations, and then count removal as compliance.)
The ministry also
said it asked Facebook to limit live-streaming
capabilities on its platforms to accounts that Facebook has
authenticated. It is unclear how Facebook will be expected to do that, or what
criteria authenticated accounts would have to satisfy. The ministry said it told
the company to “pre-censor” online content and remove advertisements “that
spread fake news related to political issues upon request from the government.”
Facebook has previously told Human Rights Watch that its standards
relating to takedowns and geographic blocking of content “are
global.” The process for taking down or blocking content, Facebook said in a
written communication, is the “same in Vietnam as it is around the world.”
Reported content is first reviewed against the company’s Community Standards; if
it passes muster, Facebook says it will then assess whether the government
request is legally valid under local law and international human rights law.
Vietnam should bring its laws into line with international human rights
standards, which require any restrictions on freedom of expression to be
necessary and proportionate to fulfill legitimate aims, Human Rights Watch said,
and internet companies should publicly press the government to do the same.
For
more Human Rights Watch reporting on Vietnam, please visit:
https://www.hrw.org/asia/vietnam
For
more Human Rights Watch reporting on Internet Freedom, please visit:
https://www.hrw.org/topic/free-speech/internet-freedom
For
more information, please contact:
In Washington, DC, John Sifton (English): +1-646-479-2499 (mobile); or siftonj@hrw.org.
Twitter: @johnsifton
In New York, Amos Toh (English): +1-212-216-1262; or toha@hrw.org.
Twitter: @AmosToh
In San Francisco, Brad Adams (English): +1-347-463-3531 (mobile); or adamsb@hrw.org.
Twitter: @BradMAdams