The world press reported the arrest of Pham Doan Trang

A series of articles in many languages ​​from many news agencies around the world simultaneously reported and analyzed the arrest of dissident journalist Pham Doan Trang on 7 October and he was charged with ‘carrying out propaganda against the house’. country’.

With this accusation, Ms. Pham Doan Trang could face the highest sentence of 20 years in prison.

The Guardian of the UK has an article with the title: “Vietnam arrested famous journalists when the state suppressed freedom of expression online.”

He writes that Pham Doan Trang is the author of many books with works on many topics, from women’s rights, LGBT to the environment, campaign activities and land rights, analysts for the article claimed. :

“Trang’s arrest was part of a campaign to crack down on activists ahead of Vietnam’s national congress in January, while Facebook faces criticism for its growing conspiracy to enforce freedom of speech.”

On October 7, the British news agency Reuters reported that “Vietnam arrested the activist several hours after the human rights meeting with the United States.” The newsletter writes:

“International human rights groups and sources report that Vietnam detained a blogger and a dissident known for their” anti-state activities “several hours after the government organized the attacks. Annual human rights negotiations with the United States …

Bloomberg also cited a statement from Phil Robertson, Human Rights Watch (HRW) deputy director for Asia, saying the arrest came hours after the annual US-Vietnam human rights dialogue. .

“Doan Trang’s blog, which covers politically sensitive topics, including the relationship between Vietnam and China and tensions over sovereignty over the islands,” said Robertson. According to Robertson, Trang was arrested by police in May 2016 when she went to meet with President Barack Obama, who invited her to attend an activist meeting with him during his visit to Hanoi.

The Aljazeera news agency also reported on the arrest of Pham Doan Trang. The flyer portrays her as a celebrity for her active fieldwork, participating in demonstrations in support of jailed dissidents, environmental protests and in response to grievances. Sea shipping in the South China Sea.

Trang has been on the security forces’ radar for more than 10 years and has been detained and harassed multiple times, including while on her way to a meeting with then-US President Barack Obama in 2016, and a year later, when he met with a delegation from the European Union on a fact-finding tour prior to the annual human rights dialogue with Vietnam, “he wrote.

The Book Seller reported that Ms Pham Doan Trang is expected to speak at a joint session presented by the API at the Frankfurt Book Fair and that the video of her speech will be broadcast as scheduled on October 15. .

In an article titled “Prix Voltaire Winner Pham Doan Trang Arrested in Vietnam,” The Book Seller quotes Kristenn Einarsson, chair of the API Committee on Freedom of Publications, as saying: “This is terrible news. But sadly, predictably, Pham Doan Trang and Tu Do Publisher have been undercover for many years. Mr. Trang’s work and courage are a source of inspiration for every publishing house, and the international publishing community must support him and fight for a true editorial freedom in Vietnam. “

Juergen Boos, President of Frankfurter Buchmesse, said: “We were very concerned about the arrest of Pham Doan Trang, just before the start of the world’s largest book fair, which celebrates freedom of expression. I am glad that the international publishing community is listening to Pham Doan Trang on the video pre-recorded at the seminar on ‘Guerrilla Publishing and International Assistance’. “

Theshiftnews, quoting Daniel Bastard, Director of the Reporters Without Borders Asia Pacific (RSW) Department, which awarded Pham Doan the 2019 Press Freedom Award for Influence on the Page: “Keep Pham Doan Trang is the last stage in the pursuit of the growing persecution policy of the current leadership of the Communist Party of Vietnam. “

“His only crime is to provide his fellow citizens with independent information and to help them fully exercise their rights under the Vietnamese constitution. His whereabouts are not prisons. He must be released immediately.”

The RSW representative also said that the most recent contact with Pham Doan Trang was when she was hospitalized to treat leg injuries believed to have been caused by police after her arrest in 2018.

Shawn Crispin, a representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in Southeast Asia, said in an article posted on the organization’s website: “The Vietnamese government should immediately release Pham Doan Trang and abolish all charges in against him. At the same time, end the decades-long campaign of persecution. Vietnam must stop treating independent journalists as criminals. “

Vietnam is typically near the bottom of RSW’s rankings for press freedom, and is currently in 174 out of 180 countries.

In the case of the arrest of Pham Doan Trang, Ms Yu Hah from Amnesty International told The Guardian that Facebook’s decision to comply with the Vietnamese authorities’ requests for censorship earlier this year “made them complicit”. with the harsh suppression of freedom of expression in the country.

“We have seen a continuous increase in the censorship of legitimate comments on social and political issues on this platform since 2018, with an exceptionally strong increase in 2020,”

“The simple act of sharing information on many of Vietnam’s serious human rights problems, from land disputes to the death penalty, has been routinely and arbitrarily censored on Facebook,” Yu Hah said. talk.

The Guardian reiterated that in March 2020, a Reuters report revealed how Facebook faced intense pressure from the Vietnamese government. State telecommunications companies have disabled Facebook servers located in Vietnam. This slows down local traffic on Facebook.

As a result, Facebook began censoring content deemed “anti-state” in Vietnam, including content posted by activists such as Pham Doan Trang.

Facebook emphasizes that posts are not deleted, but rather “geoblocked,” meaning that users with Vietnamese IP addresses cannot see them, but they are still visible to foreign users.

But the Guardian article argues that geoblocking affects not only important posts, but personal accounts as well.

The example given is the case of Bui Van Thuan, a Vietnamese Facebook user with tens of thousands of followers. On January 8, after Thuan posted content criticizing the government, he received a notice from Facebook that “due to legal requirements” in Vietnam, his account would have “restricted access.”

In the weeks leading up to his conversation with The Guardian, Thuan wrote openly on Facebook about the conflict of interest on the land in Dong Tam. More specifically, it predicted an impending chase. Two days later, some 3,000 policemen stormed Dong Tam village at dawn and in a clash with the villagers, three policemen and Mr. Le Dinh Kinh, the spiritual leader of the village, were killed.

Just eight months after the confrontation, the murder trial was delivered. Two brothers, their son Le Dinh Kinh was sentenced to death. Thuan’s Facebook account is still restricted all the time and is only unlocked a few days after the trial ends.

Carl Thayer, Professor Emeritus at the University of New South Wales Canberra, an expert on Southeast Asia, told The Guardian that since Vietnam began implementing the Cyber ​​Security Act in 2019 there has been “a marked increase in arrests and prosecutions. Vietnamese people expressing their views on a number of social issues, especially corruption and the environment, on social media. “

“Most of the arrests are indirectly related to the upcoming National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam [vào tháng Giêng]”The Guardian quoted Professor Carl Thayer.

“In other words,” said Mr. Carl Thayer, “the arrests are part of the process of continuing to clamp down on dissent on sensitive social issues and preventing others from following suit. Arrests will increase in the coming months as the congress “.