Vietnamese agents are alleged to have celebrated with champagne after abducting the fugitive official, Trinh Xuan Thanh, from Berlin last July. A year later, they find themselves looking back on a botched job, the fallout from which continues to reverberate…
The jailing of a fugitive spy for nine years at a closed door trial in Hanoi this week has raised further questions about the Communist party’s handling of Vietnam’s latest espionage drama. Phan Van Anh Vu made a dramatic bid…
The Vietnamese government fears the latest wave of demonstrations could coalesce into broad-based opposition to its rule and is deploying riot police and under-cover units across the country to suppress the protests. Police dragged activists from the streets of Ho…
Vietnam has rushed through a new cyber security law aimed at tightening the government’s control of information and silencing its critics on the internet. The National Assembly overwhelmingly approved the bill despite widespread alarm at home and abroad over the…
For a country with one of the most oppressive political systems in Asia, Vietnam is not often held up as a model for emulation by other countries. So it is with some enthusiasm that Vietnamese officials have embraced reports that…
The Vietnamese Communist party faces no organised opposition and endures no restraint on its use of a formidable internal security apparatus, yet it continues to crack down on dissent as if its survival was at stake. This week an appeals…
A former top police officer and the former head of Vietnam’s third largest city have been arrested, in the latest sign of political infighting amongst the country’s leadership. After rooting out allegedly corrupt officials in the banking sector and the…
What is the difference between “toxic” content designed to cause chaos, and free and open discussion of current events ? Portraying legitimate criticism and comment as subversion is the oldest trick in the book for authoritarian governments attempting to silence…
A crushing sentence of 15 years in prison for a leading pro-democracy advocate cements Vietnam’s growing reputation as Southeast Asia’s most repressive country. Nguyen Van Dai, a debarred human rights lawyer and campaigner for political freedoms, was sentenced alongside five…
The Vietnamese government is preparing to bare its teeth this week with a display of communist justice designed to intimidate its critics into silence. For more than two years, the human rights lawyer and democracy advocate, Nguyen Van Dai, has…