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Guest Forum

Guest Forum

Visiting colleagues in Vietnam

(Maartje Duin) In Vietnam, critical writers and bloggers are systematically persecuted. Following the PEN Cards Promo, Maartje Duin went to Vietnam to interview them. In November I received a strictly confidential mail with strict instructions from PEN Netherlands.The organization is part of PEN International and stands up for oppressed writers worldwide. 
Attached was a list that is not allowed to (...) (21/04/2013)


The U.S. shouldn’t sell out human rights in Vietnam

(Allen S. Weiner) - U.S. officials should demand that Vietnam can start by releasing the activists arrested last year and others who have been detained solely for seeking a voice in their country’s future. The United States should not reward Vietnam by including it in the Trans-Pacific Partnership while the (...) (26/08/2012)


Vietnam’s Not-So-Rare Protests

(David Brown) - For every blogger who is put out of action, several more spring up. Vietnam’s historically tiny band of human rights activists has been able to argue the case for civil and political freedoms to any citizen with a dial-up internet connection — by a recent count, more than a third of Vietnam’s 90 (...) (6/08/2012)


Vietnam’s blog shame

(Kamila Shamsie) - Ta Phong Tan remains in prison, and it’s unclear if she has been informed of her mother’s death. Surely it’s past time for the individuals, organisations and governments who speak out against repression in China and Iran to add their voices to the (...) (5/08/2012)


Easy Part Over for Vietnam

(The Diplomat) - The optimism during Vietnam’s pre-2008 economic boom is over. The Communist Party knows it must take action. But it doesn’t seem to know what. (11/06/2012)


Will Vietnam Follow Myanmar’s Path Toward Reform?

(Loc Doan) - The intellectual battle over the future of American hegemony has been joined, with some arguing that the American Century has ended, and others claiming that U.S. military and economic advantage are likely to persist. The debate is complicated by a number of factors, however. Shifts in hegemony (...) (10/03/2012)


Vietnam’s Land Hero

(Luke Hunt) - Land disputes are crowded with environmentalists, farmers and greedy developers who work hand in glove with local politicians. Clashes have persistently tested Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, and demand from the likes of palm oil plantations is as strong as the loggers’ ability to fell (...) (23/02/2012)


Hanoi Plays Hide the Dissident

(Wall Street Journal) - Hanoi purports to want closer relations with Washington as a counterbalance to Beijing’s rising assertiveness in the South China Sea. Washington says it wants Hanoi to improve its human-rights record. Which means both sides face a new test in dissident Bui Thi Minh (...) (13/01/2012)


Testimony at the Sixth Dublin Platform for Human Rights Defenders

(Huynh Van Dong) - Invited to the Sixth Dublin Platform for Human Rights Defenders by Front Line, human rights lawyer Huynh Van Dong found himself barred from leaving Vietnam. In a written testimony to Front Line, Huynh Van Dong writes about the miscarriages of justice and the difficulties of legal profession (...) (27/09/2011)


Statement at the Global Summit Against Discrimination and Persecution

(Tran Khai Thanh Thuy) - Novelist and democracy activist Tran Khai Thanh Thuy addresses the 2011 Global Summit Against Discrimination and Persecution in the panel "Women of Courage: The Struggle for Human Dignity" in New York City. (26/09/2011)