One of Vietnam’s most prominent jailed dissidents, blogger Nguyen Van Hai, has gone on a hunger strike amid concerns over his prison treatment,  his ex-wife said Wednesday, highlighting a trend of fasting protests by political prisoners in the one-party Communist state. Hai, popularly known by his pen name Dieu Cay, has gone on the hunger…

Written by David Brown SUNDAY, 07July 2013 Facing off against China Follow America and save the country; follow China and save the party. This saying, heard everywhere in Vietnam, distills the geopolitical dilemma facing its ruling Communist Party. Forty years after the last American troops left Vietnam, the party that won independence and unified the nation…

End Political Trials of Human Rights Defenders JULY 8, 2013   July 8, 2013 Update The trial of Le Quoc Quan, scheduled for July 9, was postponed in the afternoon of July 8. The trial has not been rescheduled. ————————————————————– (New York) – The Vietnamese government should drop politically motivated charges against Le Quoc Quan,…

By Adam Fforde, on 02 Jul 2013, Briefing Vietnam’s prime minister, Nguyen Tan Dung, recently survived a confidence vote in the National Assembly as well as severe pressure at the most recent party plenum. As prime minister of a country ostensibly ruled by the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP), he is theoretically subordinate to the Politburo,…

Posted on 1 July 2013 – 02:41pm Last updated on 1 July 2013 – 05:50pm HANOI (July 1, 2013): Rioting inmates seized control of a Vietnamese jail for several hours, taking the prison chief hostage in a protest demanding better treatment and conditions, state media said Monday. The disturbance started early Sunday at the Xuan…

This year marks the 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and Vietnam. When Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Vietnam in January, the two countries confirmed that their relationship had grown into an even greater “strategic partnership” and agreed to continue cooperating on constructing nuclear power plants and developing rare earths resources. However, many problems…

Authorities in northern Vietnam detained a young blogger for several hours on Tuesday, interrogating him about his activism and confiscating copies of a controversial book, amid a growing crackdown on online dissent that has seen three netizens arrested in recent weeks.  Twenty-seven-year-old former medical student Tu Anh Tu, who has blogged critically about Vietnam’s one-party…

By Joshua Lipes 2013-06-05 The U.S. said Wednesday that it would not lift remaining sanctions on weapons exports to Vietnam unless Hanoi improves its human rights record. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs Joseph Yun told a congressional hearing on U.S. relations with Vietnam that Washington would not support an upgrade in…

The repression is fierce; the self-criticism mild Jun 22nd 2013 | SINGAPORE |From the print edition              THE police in Vietnam have been busy. Their targets, as so often, have been the nation’s pesky bloggers. On June 13th they arrested Pham Viet Dao in Hanoi; two days later it was the turn of…

Recent Arrests, Physical Attacks Require Strong Diplomatic Response JUNE 19, 2013 (New York, June 20, 2013) – The Vietnamese government should unconditionally release recently arrested bloggers and end physical attacks on critics, Human Rights Watch said today. Vietnam’s donors and trading partners should publicly call on the government to end the use of the criminal law…