Politics & Economy

Webinar on Vietnam: Restricting Internet Freedom and Silencing Cyber-Dissidents

Published on

October 18, 2020

US Vietnam Review

Press Release, October 16, 2020

Webinar: Monday October 26, 2020

9:00 am – 10:30 am EDT / 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm Vietnam time

Follow on livestream: facebook.com/VNAdvocacy

Contact: BPSOS@bpsos.org

*****

On October 26, BPSOS will host a webinar on the policies of the Vietnamese government limiting and preventing the right to freedom of expression on the Internet, with discussion on the following topics:

Harassing, punishing, and arresting journalists, bloggers, and social media users
Employing “opinion-shapers” to attack and defame human rights defenders
Putting pressure on service providers like Facebook and YouTube to censor dissenting voices
Launching cyberattacks against websites that criticize the Communist party and installing spyware to gather intelligence on human rights activists

On October 8, two media organizations in Germany (Die Zeit and Bayerischer Rundfunk) recently investigated the hacking activities of Oceanlotus against Vietnamese human rights defenders in that country. This hacking group is believed to be founded and sponsored by the Vietnamese government.[1]

Among the panelists will be Steven Adair, the President of Volexity, an information security firm that contributed to the research in Germany. Mr. Adair has for years monitored the hacking operation of Oceanlotus.

The second panelist is Trinh Huu Long, Co-Director of Legal Initiatives for Vietnam (LIV). Currently residing in Taipei, Taiwan, Long is editor-in-chief of Luat Khoa, a legal news site of LIV. On October 6, journalist Pham Doan Trang, the other co-founder of LIV, was arrested shortly after her investigation on the brutal police attack on Dong Tam villagers was released.

The third panelist is Phil Robertson, Deputy Director of the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch. Residing in Bangkok, Thailand, he is a human rights advocate engaging with government and UN agency officials, as well as a researcher and writer on topics of human rights, labor rights, refugees, and migration. At the end of 2018, HRW published a report on the control of free speech on the internet in Vietnam and the dangerous provisions in the Law on Cybersecurity.[2]

“The Law on Cyber Security passed by the National Assembly of Vietnam in June 2018 is just an additional tightening in the government’s consistent policy to limit and control freedom of expression in the era of information technology, lasting at least from the 2004 National Security Law to the present,” said Dr. Thang, Executive Director of BPSOS.

At the most recent Universal Periodic Review of Vietnam at the end of 2018, BPSOS together with the Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam submitted a report to the UN on the Vietnamese government’s policy of controlling freedom of expression.[3]

To join the webinar, please register at tinyurl.com/bpsos-cybersecurity. Enrollees will have the opportunity to ask questions and share comments with the speakers.

Additionally, everyone can follow the discussion with Vietnamese translation via Facebook Livestream: Facebook.com/VNAdvocacy.

Notes

[1] Vietnamese hacker group targets human-rights-activists in Germany

[2] Vietnam: Big Brother Is Watching Everyone

[3] Vietnam UPR 2019 – Joint submission on freedoms of expression, press and internet

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