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A rights group warns Vietnam is ramping up arrests under broad laws to crush dissent
The 88 Project says authorities relied on Article 331 to target critics, with tracked politically related arrests doubling from 2022.
- On Monday, the human rights group The 88 Project released an analysis documenting 56 politically related arrests in Vietnam during 2025, marking the third consecutive year of increases and double the 2022 figure.
- Under President To Lam, who has served as Communist Party general secretary since 2024, authorities increasingly rely on Article 331 of the penal code, which allows up to seven years in prison for abusing democratic freedoms.
- Human Rights Watch wrote last year that officials have enlarged Article 331's scope to target ordinary citizens voicing grievances, including three men behind the YouTube channel "The Messenger" arrested for allegedly uploading "distorted content."
- Fears of an uprising, or a so-called "color revolution," drive these arrests; Vietnam and China agreed earlier this year to "prioritize political security and enhance efforts to prevent and resist color revolutions," Xinhua News Agency reported.
- Ben Swanton, co-director of The 88 Project, stated the country has become a "police state that tolerates no dissent" under To Lam's ascendancy, marking a regression from the relative openness of the 2010s.
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Associated Press News+16 Reposted by 16 other sources
A rights group warns Vietnam is ramping up arrests under broad laws to crush dissent
A rights group is warning that Vietnam is increasingly using broadly worded laws to arrest activists, dissidents and others seen as threats to Communist Party rule.
·New York, United States
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Total News Sources18
Leaning Left7Leaning Right1Center10Last UpdatedBias Distribution56% Center
Bias Distribution
- 56% of the sources are Center
56% Center
L 39%
C 56%
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