In an article of 10 March of last year, blogger Paul Le Van Son analyzed the term “propaganda against the state,” which the authorities systematically deploy against critics. He published this courageous piece on his blog, denouncing the use of Article 88 of the penal code against Vietnamese citizens who call for reforms. The families of these critics often have devoted their lives to the Communist Party. He concluded that instead of rejecting the criticism, the government should take it to heart: “On reflection, those whom the autorities accuse of opposing the regime are instead trying their best to contribute to improving conditions and to building a stronger state.”

That piece, among others, led to Van Son’s arrest and imprisonment. He has spent more than one year behind bars, though he has not been sentenced. He is the target of exactly the kind of charges that he denounced in the article, though formally speaking he was not charged under article 88. According to the provisional detention order, the only legal document we have seen because his lawyer has no access to his file, he was charged under Article 79, specifically with “membership in the reactionary organization, ‘Reform Party of Vietnam,’ which aims to overthrow the people’s government.”

In all, 18 netizens are presently imprisoned for having tried to provide information to their fellow citizens, according to Reporters Without Borders. No trial date has been scheduled. Van Son’s article, which represents a point of view common to many local bloggers of pacifist orientation, is blocked by some internet service providers in Vietnam.

A young Catholic blogger is scapegoated

Paulus Le Van Son, 27 years old, covers social and political issues in his country, especially those involving religion and human rights. He participates in the collective blog Baokhongle and contributes to Vietnam Redemptorist News. His accounts of anti-Chinese demonstrations and police violence apparently contributed to his 3 August 2011 arrest in Hanoi, which amounted to a police kidnapping.

The day before, the blogger had attended the trial of another netizen, lawyer Cu Huy Ha Vu. Van Son had covered the first session of the trial the previous April. He was violently arrested on that occasion. In the article below/attached, he writes of his visit to the lawyer’s family and the reprisals against them.

Recently, prison conditions for Van Son have deteriorated. Held since early July of this year in the B14 prison in Hanoi, he was then transfered to the run-down Hoa Lo prison, in the city center, where prisoners face greater hardships than in B14.

Dragged through the mud

Meanwhile, Van Son is the target of a systematic defamation campaign in the official press. He is accused, along with other young Catholics, of plotting against the regime. 

An article on 13 October 2012 in “Cong An,” an official security service publication in Ho Chi Minh City, describes a so-called plot involving young Catholics from Nghe An and Thanh Hoa provinces, who had been arrested in July 2011. According to the publication, the large-scale plot had been fomented with help from abroad. Numerous fictitious details concerning the group’s members were provided.

One passage focused on Van Son. In translation, it reads:

Le Van Son, a native of Thanh Hoa, is in close contact with a group of opponents of the State such as Le Quoc Quan and a number of religious extremists. In this regard, Son constantly gathers information concerning various complaints involving security forces’ fight against oppositionists, and of various problems that prompt discontent and are considered sensitive. This information-gathering was conducted to aid propaganda efforts against the Vietnamese government. As a member of the group, “Republican entrepreneurs and intellectuals,” led by Le Qyoc Quan, Son participated in training sessions for Catholic information work. On 12-13 July 2011 he traveled to Thailand to participate in a training program entitled “Quang Trung.” Following his arrest, he has displayed rebellious conduct, distorting information in his responses and denying his crimes.

In an article posted on the Thanh Nien Con Giao website, journalist-blogger Jean-Baptiste Nguyen Hu Vinh republishes the passage above, along with his comments. He notes in particular that the group to which Van Son belonged was not “Republican businessmen and intellectuals,” but “Catholic entrepreneurs and intellectuals,” a group launched by Cardinal Tung, archbishop of Hanoi, to encourage the social advancement of Catholics, that resumed activities within the past two years.

He was fined 1 million CFA francs (1,500 euros) and given a one-year suspended jail sentence on a libel charge on 18 September 2012 for publishing a brief in his 6-9 September issue about a petition against “misgovernance” and “the Deby government’s arbitrary rule.” The petition’s authors, the president, vice-president and general secretary of the Federation of Chad Unions (UST), were also sentenced to suspended jail terms and fines.

Although there were absolutely no grounds for a defamation prosecution, the Chadian judicial system rounded off the first stage of its persecution of N'Djaména Bi-hebdo by suspending the newspaper for three months. Other news media that had reported the existence of the petition were meanwhile left in peace.

Nékim immediately appealed against the three-month suspension order and continued to publish pending the outcome of his appeal, as permitted under Chadian law. On 20 September, he published a cartoon about his trial on the front page but the justice system did not appreciate his sense of humour and responded by banning the newspaper and charging him with contempt of court.

To protest against this judicial censorship, all of Chad’s independent and opposition print media suspended publication for a week and prepared a special single-issue “Newspaper of Newspapers” in support of Nékim with “We’ve had enough” as its title and a print run of 5,000 copies.

The entire issue was seized from the printing press on the orders of the public prosecutor, who – after some hesitation – said he had taken this action because it lacked the High Council for Communication’s permission and the certificate normally issued by the prosecutor’s office for this kind of publication.

In the late afternoon of 7 July 2011, a huge explosion shook a military depot in Abadan, a town 20 km outside Ashgabat, starting a fire that triggered even more violent explosions in the hours that followed. 

The media, which are tightly controlled by the authorities, said nothing until the foreign ministry issued a terse communiqué the next day claiming that hot weather had caused “pyrotechnic material … intended for fireworks” to catch fire. There were “no victims or major destruction” and the population was receiving all the necessary medical and social assistance, the reassuring communiqué added.

Nonetheless, the town was surrounded, no one was allowed in, and the Internet was disconnected throughout the country. Alarming reports had already begun to circulate on independent news websites based abroad (such as Radio Azatlyk, Khroniki Turkmenistana and Fergananews) and in the Russian media.

Eye-witness accounts described scenes of chaos and panic, homes flattened and dozens or even hundreds of dead and wounded. Amateur videos quickly confirmed the scale of the disaster and extent of the damage. They showed massive explosions, buildings destroyed and military projectiles raining down on areas kilometres away.

While accusing the Russian media of “disinformation” and “provocation,” the authorities finally said that “the pyrotechnic material fire extended to military depots” and that “15 people died in the accident – 16 soldiers and two civilians.” 

At the same time, a crackdown was launched on bloggers, journalists and netizens. Some were arrested. Others were interrogated by the security services. The mobiles phones of residents in surrounding areas were examined. And there were cyber-attacks on independent news websites, access to which was already blocked in Turkmenistan.

One of the first journalists to cover the disaster, Dovletmyrat Yazkuliyev, a reporter for Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty’s Turkmen service, was sentenced to five years in prison on a trumped-up charge at the end of a sham trial but was released a few weeks later thanks to international pressure.

Under a 2012 presidential decree, Abadan is to be moved and entirely rebuilt nearer to the capital in Rukhabat (in Akhal province).

Here are some of the videos that ordinary citizens circulated in the days following the explosion, forcing the Turkmen authorities to recognize at least part of the reality of what had happened.