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WALL STREET JOURNAL
Vietnam Squeezes Activists on Facebook and on Stage
Pressure on dissident singer who met Barack Obama reflects broad
crackdown
By James Hookway
HANOI—Vietnamese singer Do Nguyen Mai Khoi came face to face with the
reach of her country’s security forces after she met with President
Barack Obama in Hanoi in May last year.
Ms. Mai Khoi was among several dissidents who were invited to meet with
Mr. Obama during his visit. She had recently tried but failed to make
the list of independent candidates for the country’s legislature, which
does little to challenge the ruling Communist Party.
When she arrived home, four policemen knocked at her door and tried to
make her acknowledge that she owned a Facebook page which criticized the
security forces. She refused, fearing she would be arrested on the spot.
“They
have called my parents in for questioning, raided two of my concerts,
asked my landlord to kick me out of my house, refused my permit to live
in Hanoi, and put me under constant surveillance,” said Ms. Mai Khoi,
who is now 33. “Some of my best friends are no longer friends with me,”
she said.
The pressure Ms. Mai Khoi faces reflects what human-rights groups say is
the largest and most persistent crackdown in the communist state in
years. Vietnamese officials didn’t respond to requests for comment for
this article.
It comes as Vietnam is again in the spotlight as the host of this year’s
annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. President Donald Trump
used a speech at the summit on Friday to champion his America-first
trade policy.
Amnesty International says Vietnam is currently holding at least 84
political prisoners or dissidents for crimes such as “spreading
propaganda against the state” or “abusing democratic freedoms.” In many
cases they have been prosecuted for posting critical comments on
Facebook.
The latest blogger to be convicted, a university student named Phan Kim
Khanh, was given a six-year prison sentence last month. The 11-year-old
daughter of another jailed dissident, Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, wrote to
first lady Melania Trump to help free her. Ms. Trump awarded Ms. Quynh
the State Department’s International Women of Courage Award in March,
and the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi has lobbied for the release of Ms. Quynh
and other dissidents.
Ms. Mai Khoi, who is now putting together her first album with her new
band, The Dissidents, has drawn comparisons to performers such as Lady
Gaga and Russia’s activist group Pussy Riot. To some extent, her fame
has helped protect her. Diplomats and executives such as Eric Schmidt,
executive chairman of Google’s parent Alphabet Inc., have sought out her
views.
The U.S. has taken concrete steps to expand trade with Vietnam, dropping
the arms embargo last year and making it a “comprehensive partner” in
2013. The two countries signed another ‘joint vision statement’ during
Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc’s visit to the U.S. this
year.
Mr. Obama, during his May 2016 visit, hailed a new era of relations with
Hanoi but also spoke of concerns about free speech, freedom of assembly
and government accountability.
Successive American administrations have emphasized trade and diplomatic
ties more than they have encouraged more personal freedoms, said Nguyen
Quang A, a prominent economist who once headed Vietnam’s first
independent think tank.
The move toward more autocratic forms of government in China and Russia,
where many of Vietnam’s top leaders studied during the Soviet Union
years, have also added to the sense that there will few, if any
repercussions from the crackdown.
“The authorities are thinking, ‘OK, we are in a safe space here’,” said
Mr. A.
Mr. A and some other commentators said a similar pattern is unfolding
elsewhere in the region. Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a Thai academic based
in Tokyo, notes that the military leadership of Thailand, also an APEC
member, is tightening its hold on power, and Cambodia’s strongman Hun
Sen has ordered opposition leaders arrested and accused the U.S. of
plotting to unseat him, something Washington denies.
Myanmar’s campaign to clear ethnic-Rohingya Muslims from its western
border region, meanwhile, is turning the country in an aggressively
nationalist direction and derailing American efforts to nurture a fully
functioning democracy on China’s eastern border.
This note of pessimism is particularly strong
in Vietnam, where experts such as Carlyle Thayer at Australia’s
Defence Force Academy have estimated that as
many as one in six working-age Vietnamese work for or provide
information to the state security agencies and police.
Since January 2016, the Party has attempted to stifle a range of
protests. Demonstrations and online campaigns on issues such as land
rights for farmers, highway tolls and environmental issues have put
security officials on edge.
U.S.-based cybersecurity firm Volexity this week warned that hackers it
believes to be aligned with the government had attempted to infect
antigovernment websites with malware to track their visitors.
President Tran Dai Quang, a candidate to succeed Communist Party General
Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong as the leading figure in the Politburo, also
recently called for more surveillance of Facebook and other social
networks, complaining that some people used them to “undermine the
prestige of the leaders of the party and the state.”
Well-known blogger Nguyen Chi Tuyen, better known as Anh Chi on
Facebook, said police are trying to stifle the spread of smaller groups
in case they encourage other people to stage larger demonstrations
against Vietnam’s leaders.
“They want to stop us inspiring other people to speak up, too,” he said.
Ms. Mai Khoi, meanwhile, is trying not to provoke the authorities too
much until she completes her album, which switches the perky agitpop
tracks for which she was best known for her darker, folk-and-jazz
inflected songs such as “Re-Education Camp.”
Once it is out, she said, she plans to visit the U.S. to explain what’s
happening in the country to congressional leaders—if Vietnamese
authorities agree to renew her passport |