Crackdown on activists continues in Viet Nam

On Tuesday, a Viet Nam court sentenced a farm worker organizer to five years in prison for subversion against the state, Reuters reported the next day. This is the seventh political activist to be convicted for subversion since March, bringing the total to 20 dissidents detained since November.

“Vietnam acted when it did to give it enough time to assess the overseas reaction, especially in the United States,” said Carl Thayer of the University of New South Wales in Canberra.

With National Assembly elections falling on May 20 and a trip by President Nguyen Minh Triet to the U.S. slated for the summer, international organizations continue to pressure the government for an explanation as to the series of charged activists.

Martin Gainsborough, a political analyst of Viet Nam at the University of Bristol (UK), classified the arrests and trials as “the reflex action of an authoritarian state ... If you are such a state, you are always afraid things will get out of hand.”

International human rights organizations are also calling for the U.S. government to reinstate Vietnam as a country of particular concern on a U.S. religious rights blacklist due to continuous violations.

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