Laos: Investigate ‘Disappearance’ of Prominent Activist

Human Rights Watch (New York, December 20, 2012)

Sombath Somphone

The Lao government should urgently investigate the feared forced disappearance of Sombath Somphone, a prominent social activist, Human Rights Watch said today. He was last seen on December 15, 2012, in Vientiane. Circumstances surrounding the case, including security camera footage, indicate that Lao authorities took him into custody, raising concerns for his safety.

Sombath, 60, is founder and former director of the Participatory Development Training Centre in Laos. He is widely respected in the field of education and development not only in his home country, but also across Asia. As a result of his work, Sombath received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership, one of Asia’s top civil honors, in 2005.

“The Lao government needs to immediately reveal Sombath’s location and release him,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Lao authorities should come clean on the enforced disappearance of this prominent social leader and take steps to stem the deepening climate of fear his disappearance has caused.”

Sombath was last seen by his wife, Ng Shui Meng, on December 15 as they were driving separately back from his office to their home for dinner. Sombath’s jeep was following his wife’s car at around 6 p.m. near the police post on Thadeua Road (KM 3) in Vientiane, the Lao capital. Shortly after that, Shui Meng lost sight of his jeep, and he never arrived at their house. She called his mobile phone many times and heard a recording, indicating that his phone was switched off. On the morning of December 16, Shui Meng reported him missing to local authorities and to the police, and searched for him in vain in all of Vientiane’s hospitals.

On December 17, Shui Meng went to the Vientiane Municipality Police Station and asked to review the December 15 security camera footage taken around 6 p.m. at the spot where Sombath was last seen.

The video footage, which Human Rights Watch viewed, showed that Sombath’s jeep was stopped by police at the Thadeua police post at 6:03 p.m. Then Sombath was taken into the police post. Later a motorcyclist stopped at the police post and drove off with Sombath’s jeep, leaving his own motorcycle by the roadside. Later another truck with flashing lights came and stopped at the police post. Two people got out of the truck, took Sombath into the vehicle, and then drove off.

Human Rights Watch is concerned that Sombath has been taken into custody by Lao authorities, and that he could be at serious risk of ill-treatment. Despite numerous appeals by his family, diplomats, and international nongovernmental organizations over five days, Lao authorities – including the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – have not provided information regarding Sombath’s safety and his whereabouts. On December 19, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement confirming the incidents as recorded on the security camera, without explaining why police at the scene did not take any action to protect Sombath and stop what Lao authorities claimed to be a “kidnap” driven by personal or business conflicts.


“The Lao authorities should recognize that Sombath’s years of development work have earned him important friends around the world, and that the clamor for his release is not going to go away,” Adams said. “Instead of ignoring inquiries from his families, diplomats, and civil society, Lao authorities should immediately reveal his location and return him to his family.”

The Lao authorities should set in motion a prompt, credible, and impartial investigation of Sombath’s enforced disappearance, and the appropriate prosecution of all those responsible, Human Rights Watch said.

Enforced disappearances are defined under international law as the arrest or detention of a person by state officials or their agents followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or to reveal the fate or whereabouts of the person, which places the person outside the protection of the law.

Lao authorities should also take all necessary steps to end the practice of arbitrary arrests and secret detention, including making enforced disappearance a criminal offense and becoming a party to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

Consistent with international law, anyone detained by law enforcement and security forces must be held at recognized places of detention, be provided all due process rights including access to family and legal counsel, and be protected from torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.

“The Lao authorities should realize that the risk to their international reputation grows by leaps and bounds every day Sombath’s whereabouts remain unknown,” Adams said.
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Five Vietnamese Bloggers receive Hellman/Hammett Human Rights Award

Source: Human Rights Watch - DECEMBER 20, 2012

From left to right: Nguyen Huu Vinh, Vu Quoc Tu, Pham Minh Hoang

Huynh Ngoc Tuan (left), Huynh Thuc Vy (right)

(New York) – Five Vietnamese bloggers are among an extraordinary group of 41 people from 19 countries who have received the prestigious Hellman/Hammett award recognizing writers who demonstrate courage and conviction in the face of political persecution. They are Huynh Ngoc Tuan, Huynh Thuc Vy, Nguyen Huu Vinh, Pham Minh Hoang, and Vu Quoc Tu (short biographies below).

“Like other Vietnamese exercising their right to free expression, many of the country’s growing corps of bloggers are increasingly threatened, assaulted, or even jailed for peacefully expressing their views,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, which administers the annual Hellman/Hammett awards. “By recognizing these five brave men and women, who have already suffered much and face on-going threats to their basic rights, we are honored to amplify the voices the ruling Vietnamese Communist Party wants to prevent from participating in public discussions of Vietnam’s many social and political problems.”

This year’s Vietnamese award-winners reflect the diversity of sectors in Vietnamese society whose critical and concerned voices the government wishes to silence: advocate of religious freedom Nguyen Huu Vinh (who blogs as J.B Nguyen Huu Vinh); rights defender Pham Minh Hoang (who blogs as Phan Kien Quoc); freelance journalist Vu Quoc Tu (known as Uyen Vu); novelist Huynh Ngoc Tuan; and the youthful political, social commentator Huynh Thuc Vy. All five have been persecuted for their writings.

Human Rights Watch said that the Vietnamese government systematically suppresses freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly, and persecutes those who question government policies, expose official corruption, or call for democratic alternatives to one-party rule. Writers and bloggers often face lengthy prison terms imposed by “people’s courts,” temporary police detention and onerous interrogation, intrusive surveillance by various authorities, restrictions on domestic travel and prohibitions on leaving the country, beatings by security officials and anonymous thugs, fines, and denial of opportunities for livelihood.

On December 16, 2012, the police at Tan Son Nhat airport in Ho Chi Minh city prohibited blogger Huynh Trong Hieu from leaving Vietnam for the United States to receive the 2012 Hellman/Hammett awards on behalf of his father, Huynh Ngoc Tuan, and his sister Huynh Thuc Vy, and confiscated his passport. According to the police, they acted upon a request from the police of Quang Nam province where the Huynh family resides. Two other 2012 Hellman/Hammett recipients, bloggers Nguyen Huu Vinh and Vu Quoc Tu, have been also prohibited from leaving the country (Nguyen Huu Vinh in August 2012 and Vu Quoc Tu in May 2010). Blogger Pham Minh Hoang is serving a three-year probation term, which restricts his movement within his residential ward.

In a recent case, the three founders of Vietnam’s Club of Free Journalistsand former Hellman/Hammett awardees, Nguyen Van Hai (who blogs as Dieu Cay), Ta Phong Tan, and Phan Thanh Hai (who blogs as Anhbasg), were sentenced to imprisonmenton September 24, 2012, for “propaganda against the state.” That same month, politically beleaguered Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung ordered the Ministry of Public Security to target blogs and websites not approved by the authorities, punish those who create them, and prohibit state employees to read and/or disseminate information published on these websites.

“As Vietnam’s government escalates its repression of an increasingly outspoken online community, it is more important than ever for the world to celebrate the work of the five Vietnamese recipients of this year’s Hellman/Hammett awards,” Adams said. “The world’s democracies should not just continue with business as usual in Vietnam. Instead, they should make the release of all writers and political prisoners a condition of good relations.”

Human Rights Watch also commemorated the life and work of the 1994 Hellman/Hammett award winning poet Nguyen Chi Thien, who died in exile on October 2, 2012. Revered as one of Vietnam’s greatest political poets, Nguyen Chi Thien symbolized personal courage and determination despite every effort by Vietnamese authorities to silence him over many decades. Nguyen Chi Thien was first detained in 1960 for questioning the Communist Party’s version of history. In 1979, during one of his brief periods of freedom, he barged his way into the British embassy in Hanoi to make available to the world hundreds of poems he had composed in his head and memorized while previously in detention, knowing that he would be arrested again. The poems were published under the title “Flowers from Hell,” becoming a worldwide literary sensation as he indeed languished in another series of Vietnamese jails.

About the Hellman/Hammett Awards
The Hellman/Hammett awards are given annually to writers around the world who have been targets of political persecution or human rights abuses. A distinguished selection committee awards the cash grants to honor and assist writers whose work and activities have been suppressed by repressive government policies.

The grants are named for the American playwright Lillian Hellman and her longtime companion, the novelist Dashiell Hammett. Both were questioned by US congressional committees about their political beliefs and affiliations during the aggressive anti-communist investigations inspired by Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. Hellman suffered professionally and had trouble finding work. Hammett spent time in prison.

In 1989, the trustees appointed in Hellman’s will asked Human Rights Watch to devise a program to help writers who were targeted for expressing views that their governments oppose, for criticizing government officials or actions, or for writing about subjects that their governments did not want reported.

Over the past 23 years, more than 750 writers from 92 countries have received Hellman/Hammett grants of up to US$10,000 each, totaling more than $3 million. The program also gives small emergency grants to writers who have an urgent need to leave their country or who need immediate medical treatment after serving prison terms or enduring torture.

“The Hellman/Hammett grants aim to help writers who have suffered because they published information or expressed ideas that criticize policy or offend people in power,” said Lawrence Moss, coordinator of the Hellman/Hammett grant program. “Many of the writers honored by these grants share a common purpose with Human Rights Watch: to protect the rights of vulnerable people by shining a light on abuses and building pressure for change.”
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Vietnam Adopts China-Style Restrictions on Religious Freedom

by Melissa Steffan - christianitytoday.com Dec 21,2012

Replacement of 1995 law will likely solidify nation's standing as a U.S. 'country of particular concern.'

Khmer Krom Monks protested in Khleang (Soc Trang)

Vietnam has long been known as one of the U.S. State Department's "countries of particular concern" for its repression of religious freedom. And beginning January 1, a new decree could strengthen its notoriety.

Decree 92 will severely restrict freedom of worship in Vietnam, legislating "procedures by which religious organizations can register their activities, places of worship, and clerics to operate openly or to apply for official recognition." Recognized religious organizations will represent 11 different religions including Buddhist, Catholic, and Protestant traditions.

The decree will continue to ban Christian house churches that operate outside the law.

Church leaders from various religions are speaking out against the new decree, which replaces a previous law passed in 1995. The head of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (an unrecognized organization) says the new law allows the government far more power to restrict religious worship than it had before.

Similarly, Hanoi Catholics told Asia News that Vietnam's decision to model its religious policies after those in China is "draconian" and "backward."

CT has regularly reported on Vietnam, including an agreement between Hanoi officials and the U.S. to lift restrictions on Christians in 2005, as well as on a government-sanctioned Easter gathering for house churches in 2009. But activists have long called for Vietnam to end its "appalling" persecution, including abuse of tribal Christians in 2002.
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Communist Vietnam jails Hmong men for plot after 'messiah' rally

By BBC News - December 13,2012

A court in Vietnam has jailed four members of the Hmong ethnic minority after finding them guilty of plotting to overthrow the government.

One man was sentenced to seven years. Three others received three years each.

The trial follows an outbreak of violence last year when police broke up a gathering of thousands of Hmong on a remote hilltop in the north-west.

The Hmong said they were expecting the arrival of a "messiah". The authorities called it a separatist uprising.


The one-day trial was held in a court in the north-western province of Lai Chau.

The judge described Trang A Cho, 27, who was given seven years, as the ringleader.

He was accused of "propaganda against the state" and seeking to establish a "Hmong Kingdom" to "replace the State of Vietnam", a report in the Communist Party newspaper Nhan Dan said.

It is not clear how the men pleaded.

Reports say eight other men have already been jailed for "disturbing security" during the mysterious religious gathering, which took place in Dien Bien province.

Thousands of Hmong attended the gathering in May 2011. Dozens of arrests were reported and hundreds of Hmong were said to have gone into hiding afterwards.

The Hmong communities in Vietnam's mountainous north-west are among the poorest people in the country. Correspondents say they have a relationship of mutual mistrust with the government.

Many of the Hmong fought on the side of the United States during the Vietnam War, and they feel they are discriminated against because of their past.
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Vietnam, China and 8 Countries Where Your Cellphone Conversation Will Be Intercepted

By Jack Phillips - Epoch Times Staff, December 12,2012

A policeman, flanked of local milicia members, tries to stop a foreign journalist from taking pictures as they guard outside the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court on Aug 10, 2011.

Vietnam
With the expansion of the Internet in Vietnam, the communist-ruled government has stepped up efforts to filter content via legal and regulatory means. It usually targets material deemed threatening to the state, the regime, or national security.

Vietnamese officials “listen to conversations and trace calls from those on their blacklist,” which includes “high-profile activists” and members of well-known and targeted organizations, according to Freedom House.

Officials also “sometimes disconnect mobile phone service of those who are actively engaged in activities that are deemed ‘reactionary,’” it said.

In September, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung publicly threatened that bloggers who publish content critical of the government will be “seriously punished.” Some bloggers published a series of scandals about members of the Communist Party. Meanwhile, free speech activists have been described as “terrorists” by the Vietnamese government. Some 24 journalists and bloggers are currently detained in Vietnam, according to Reporters Without Borders.

A Beijing metro staff official talks on his cell phone. The Chinese regime has infamously waged a campaign of censorship via its Great Firewall, which blocks a number of terms deemed sensitive to the regime on search engines, social media sites, and other websites.

China
The first country on our list should come as no surprise. The Chinese regime has infamously waged a campaign of censorship via its Great Firewall, which blocks a number of terms deemed sensitive to the regime on search engines, social media sites, and other websites. Notably, those terms relate to Tibet, the persecuted meditation practice Falun Gong, and the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

Also not surprising is that with more than 1.3 billion people, China operates the largest Internet monitoring and censorship system in the world. The regime also implements a surveillance system on its gigantic, still-growing mobile market.

Freedom House describes the Chinese mobile market as the “most tightly regulated and controlled” on Earth, with more than 672 million subscribers of the completely state-run China Mobile services, 212 million subscribers of the also state-run China Unicom, and 138 million subscribers of state-run China Telecom.

Following the spate of self-immolations carried out by Tibetans, Chinese authorities have resorted to cutting off telecommunications in Tibetan areas, according to Reporters Without Borders.



Belarus
Belarus, often described as the “last dictatorship in Europe” because of President Alexander Lukashenko’s stranglehold over the country, has made it illegal to monitor and filter telecommunications networks.

But Belarusian authorities do it anyway. Under the auspices of protecting “national security,” in 2001, Lukashenko signed a measure to include the Internet as a potential threat, meaning that authorities can freely monitor what their citizens are doing or searching for online, according to the OpenNet Initiative (ONI).

Freedom House notes that “text messages, and voice calls of oppositional activists are routinely monitored” in Belarus.

“Control over the Internet is centralized with the government-owned Beltelecom managing the country’s Internet gateway,” ONI said, describing Belarus’s regulation of the Internet as “heavy with strong state involvement.”

Syria
Over the past 20 months, the situation in Syria has gone from bad to worse, devolving into a civil war between various factions of rebels and the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

A large number of activists have been arrested through GSM tracking systems that target mobile phones and are used by Syria’s intelligence agencies. The only two mobile service providers in Syria, including state-run Syria Tel, have now blocked sensitive terms sent via SMS. Those terms include “demonstration” and “revolution,” according to Freedom House.

The regime also uses Blue Coat Technology to filter the Internet on mobile devices as well as fixed-line ISPs. Many Syrian activists and rebels have used mobile devices to capture video, which is then uploaded to YouTube and other websites.

Syrian authorities have frequently suspended telecommunications channels, including the Internet and mobile phone service for a short period of time to prevent the spreading of information that could lead to more protests.

Both Syria and its main ally, Iran, have used “computer and network disruption, monitoring, and tracking” to quash dissent and commit “serious human rights abuses,” said a resolution issued by the White House in April.

Iran
The Islamic Republic is frequently listed as one of the most closed off countries in the world, with an atmosphere that encourages self-censorship and discourages dissent. The Internet there is heavily monitored and subjected to extensive, sophisticated filtering.

Bloggers, human rights activists, and journalists are frequent targets of security forces and are subjected to torture and inhumane treatment. Earlier this month, the family of blogger Sattar Beheshti was informed that he had been killed while in detention, with notable signs and eyewitness accounts that he had been tortured. Beheshti had been detained after he published a critical view of Iran’s human rights situation.

A report from Reuters in March found that Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE sold a highly sophisticated surveillance system to the state-controlled Telecommunication Co. of Iran that monitors landline, mobile, and Internet connections. The news agency cited unnamed sources that worked on the project, saying that the system can monitor voice, text messages, and Internet.

Human rights activists have noted numerous cases where the Islamic Republic tracked down Iranian activists by monitoring their phone calls and Internet activities.

Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan, located in Central Asia, is one of the most censored countries in the world, but the government has denied that such practices even exist.

It uses sophisticated mechanisms to control the Internet and it is rumored that the government can request information from any ISP about its users, including names, home addresses, history logs, and other data, forcing many Uzbeks to use Internet cafes, proxies, and anonymizers to access the Web. Many opposition news websites and other portals have been banned outright.

Freedom House said that it is “understood that the government can [also] easily request any information from mobile carriers about a subscriber (name, address, call logs, and SMS content) even if there is no crime committed.”

Uzbekistan’s authoritarian President Islam Karimov has also pursued “pervasive filtering” of the kind found in China and Iran, said OpenNet.

In 2004, a series of attacks in the capital, Tashkent, said to be carried out by Islamist militants, were followed by “a deepening crackdown on Uzbek society that encompasses all forms and channels of dissent, including the Internet,” OpenNet said.

Ethiopia
Ethiopia’s struggle with censorship and online surveillance was highlighted earlier this year when it imprisoned two Swedish journalists for 14 months, before they were released in September, for covering the human rights situation in the Ogaden region.

Internet access is sparse, with less than 400,000 people having access as of 2009, and with many bloggers believing their communications are being monitored. Internet cafes have become a mainstay in the country but have been closed down for offering voice-over-IP services like Skype.

Both Skype and Tor are banned in the country and the government has imposed harsh jail terms for violators. Users can get up to 15 years in prison for using Skype and similar programs.

Despite constitutional guarantees of freedom of the press and access to information, the Ethiopian government strictly controls the Internet and online media.

North Korea
It’s not news that the most isolated country in the world, North Korea, also has the tightest controls over the Internet and media, with residents forced to smuggle information and news in and out of the country via its northern border with China.

But what is more surprising is that more and more North Koreans have been procuring cellphones in recent years, with more than 1 million subscribers in the hermit country, according to a report in July from the Wall Street Journal.

There has been a boom in the illegal smuggling of cellphones into the country in recent years, but leader Kim Jong Un launched “an unprecedented multi-agency campaign to crack down” on the devices, reported Radio Free Asia in October. Most of the phones are smuggled in through China.

A source in the area told the broadcaster that once a signal is detected, investigators would be dispatched “immediately” to the area to find the offender.
The move is aimed at curbing international phone calls and Internet use.

Cuba
Cuba, which has been called the most censored country in the Western Hemisphere, only lifted its ban on cellphones along with other consumer goods in March 2008.

In 2011, “official censorship was codified in law and closely enforced,” the Committee to Protect Journalists said, while “the government persecuted critical journalists with arbitrary arrests, short-term detentions, beatings, smear campaigns, surveillance, and social sanctions.”

A report on Friday said that phone lines belonging to Hablalo Sin Miedo—an alternative media group that attempts to circumvent Cuba’s censorship—were blocked by Cuba’s state-run telecommunications monopoly, reported Hispanic Business. The Hablalo facility was being heavily used by Cuban rights activists and journalists seeking to publish news not carried in the country’s state media.

Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan is easily one of the most restricted and isolated countries in the world, with the Internet only available to a tiny portion of the country’s residents—usually elites.

“It has the lowest penetration rate of Internet access and the highest degree of first-generation controls,” OpenNet said, adding that “censorship is ubiquitous.” There are only state-run media operating in Turkmenistan and foreign journalists are heavily restricted from entering the country. During the country’s recent presidential election that saw Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov take 97 percent of the vote, few foreign newswires reported on it using the Ashgabat dateline.

“The government has sought to establish complete control of the Internet to avoid any potential threat that unmonitored access may pose to the regime,” with only one state telecom running things, said OpenNet. There are also only around 10 Internet public access points in the country.
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US-Vietnam Relationship is Cooling as Hanoi cracks down on Activists

By Chris Brummitt And Matthew Pennington--AP, December 10, 2012

HANOI, Vietnam - The U.S. and Vietnam, former enemies who share concerns about China's rise, are finding that one issue — human rights — is keeping them from becoming closer friends.

Stress between the nations is clear from a delay in an annual meeting between Washington and Hanoi on human-rights concerns. Such consultations have been held every year since 2006, but the last ones in November 2011 produced little, and a senior State Department official said the two sides were still working to "set the parameters" of the next round so it would yield progress.

The U.S. is frustrated over Vietnam's recent crackdown on bloggers, activists and religious groups it deems a threat to its grip on power, and over the detention of an American citizen on subversion charges that carry the death penalty.


"We have not seen the improvements that we would like," the State Department official said last week on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly. "We would very much like to see concrete actions."

The delay in holding the meeting, to be hosted by Hanoi, could just be a matter of weeks. But it underscores how Vietnam's worsening treatment of dissidents over the last two years has complicated efforts to strengthen its ties with the U.S.

Vietnam's foreign affairs ministry spokesman Luong Thanh Nghi said the human rights dialogues had "contributed to enhancing trust" between the two countries and that both sides were in discussion on the timing of the next round. A U.S. Embassy spokesman also said the countries were discussing when to hold the talks.

Like Washington, Vietnam wants deeper trading and security relations, but the U.S. says it must be accompanied by improvements in human rights. Some influential members of Congress are also pressing the Obama administration to get tougher on Hanoi's suppression of dissent and religious freedom.

Vietnam's relationship with the U.S. has improved greatly in recent years, largely because of shared concerns over China's increasing assertiveness in Southeast Asia. Their shared strategic interests are reflected most clearly in U.S. diplomacy in the South China Sea, where Beijing's territorial claims clash with those of Vietnam and four other countries in the region.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Vietnam has opened its economy but has been unwilling to grant religious or political freedom to its 87 million people. The U.S. and Vietnam restored diplomatic relations in 1995, 20 years after the end of the Vietnam War, and their rapprochement has accelerated as President Barack Obama has prioritized stronger ties with Southeast Asia.

Vietnam's crackdown on dissent follows a downturn in its once-robust economy. Analysts say Hanoi's leadership is defensive about domestic criticism of its economic policies, corruption scandals and infighting, much of it being spread on the Internet, out of their control.

Last year, Vietnam locked up more than 30 peaceful activists, bloggers and dissidents, according to Human Rights Watch. This year, 12 activists have been convicted in short, typically one-day trials, and sentenced to unusually long prison terms. Seven others are awaiting trial. The country is also preparing laws to crackdown on Internet freedoms.

"The internal party ructions have trumped everything," said Carl Thayer, an expert on Vietnam from the University of New South Wales. "They are so paranoid about criticism they don't care about the U.S."

The detention and looming trial of American democracy activist Nguyen Quoc Quan may be the clearest example of Hanoi's unwillingness to listen to American concerns over human rights.

Quan, 59, was arrested at Ho Chi Minh City airport in April soon after arriving on a flight from the United States, where he has lived since fleeing Vietnam by boat as a young man. Quan's family and friends say he is a leading member of Viet Tan, a nonviolent pro-democracy group that the Vietnamese authorities have labeled a terrorist outfit. He was detained in 2007 in Vietnam for six months.

Authorities initially accused Quan of terrorism, but he is now charged with subversion against the state, which carries a punishment ranging from 12 years in prison to death.

With the investigation now complete, his trial could be near. Court dates are typically released only a few days in advance.

According to a copy of the indictment obtained by The Associated Press, Quan met with fellow Vietnamese activists in Thailand and Malaysia between 2009 and 2010 and discussed Internet security and nonviolent resistance. The indictment said he travelled to Vietnam under a passport issued under the name of Richard Nguyen in 2011, when he recruited four other members of Viet Tan.

His wife doesn't deny that Quan wants to change Vietnam's political system.

"He wanted to talk to the young people and bring up the idea of democracy in Vietnam," Huong Mai Ngo, said in an interview with The Associated Press by phone from Sacramento. "He has lived in the U.S., he has had freedom here and he wants them to have the same."

Congress members with large Vietnamese-American constituencies are pressuring the Obama administration.

Rep. Frank Wolf, a leading critic, maintains the government has neglected human rights as it looks to forge economic and security ties. With three Republican colleagues, the Virginia congressman has demanded the sacking of U.S. Ambassador David Shear, accusing him of failing to invite democracy and rights activists to the July 4 celebration at the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi after giving assurances he would.

"The administration's approach has been a disaster. All they care about are economic and defence issues," said Wolf, who also took aim at Shear for failing to visit Quan in prison. "Human rights and religious freedom should be the number one priority."

U.S. officials have visited Quan five times in jail, mostly recently in late September.

"We believe no one should be imprisoned for peacefully expressing their political views or their aspirations for a freer, more democratic and prosperous future," embassy spokesman Christopher Hodges said. "We continue to call on the government of Vietnam to quickly and transparently resolve this case."

Wolf and other lawmakers interested in Vietnam do not have much say in setting policy, but can make life awkward for the Obama administration. Wolf hinted that he could propose amendments to budget legislation to put more pressure on the administration over its Vietnam policy. Wolf is a senior member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, which oversees much of the federal budget.

The U.S. has some leverage if it wishes to try and get Vietnam to improve its human rights record: Vietnam is one of the largest recipients of American aid in Asia and is currently negotiating a free trade deal with Washington and seven other countries.

The Vietnamese government declined to comment on the charges against Quan, but Hanoi is aware of U.S. sensitivities in this case. Many observers say Quan is likely to be convicted but sentenced to time served and quickly expelled, though even that is likely to raise congressional pressure on the White House to tie the trade deal and aid to progress on human rights.

"It would be a disaster for Vietnam if they come down on U.S. citizen with an extreme sentence for peacefully advocating human rights," said Linda Malone, a professor at William and Mary Law School who is advising Quan's local counsel on his defence. "They will lose tremendous ground on what they seek to advance themselves."

Matthew Pennington reported from Washington.
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What's going on in the South China Sea?

by Avaaz Team - posted 05 December 2012

China has laid claim to large stretches of water off its southern coast and is making increasingly aggressive moves to assert control over them. But some of China's neighbours also declare these waters as their own, and they're pushing back against what they say are illegal and provocative actions.

One look at a map of the South China Sea and you'll see why this energy-rich stretch of ocean is such a potential international flashpoint. China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and several other countries all claim parts of it. Half the world's shipping cargo passes through these waters. Add in the fisheries resources, and you've got an area that a lot of people think is worth fighting over:

The Pacific pivot

As China's economic and diplomatic might has grown, the country has increasingly asserted itself over more of its nearby waters. These claims have fuelled tensions and suspicions among neighbours about China's intentions in the region: a south Asian summit last summer ended in acrimony when members were unable to agree on how to defuse the tensions or territorial claims.

Recently, China announced that police from a southern Chinese island province would stop and board foreign vessels violating what it claims as territorial waters. Now, Vietnam is setting up patrols to protect its fisheries in areas China claims as its own. And India says it's prepared to send its navy to the region to protect its oil interests there.

One aggravating factor is the recent US strategic "pivot" to the Pacific. The Obama administration has pledged to pay more attention – and to deploy more diplomatic, economic and military assets – to the region. Some smaller countries, such as Vietnam, welcome the move, seeing the US as a potential counterweight to Chinese power. China, as might be expected, is less enthused, suggesting the US is meddling in somebody else's neighbourhood.

Where will this end?

Sabres are rattling, yes, but so far, nobody seems eager to actually start a fight over the prized stretch of ocean. But with China and India both spending heavily to build up their military muscle, and the US asserting its presence a little more forcefully, each provocation and escalation is worth noting and defusing.
Trouble in the South China Sea could get out of hand very quickly, and while actual fighting seems a long way off, it's worth noting how quickly tensions and nationalistic fury can come to boil.
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California Cities Ban Vietnamese Communist Officials

by Los Angeles Times December 2,2012

Two Orange County cities want to send a message to Communist delegations from Vietnam contemplating a visit: You are not welcome.

Garden Grove officials adopted a resolution last week requiring a 14-day notice of such a visit, which the officials said can provoke protests and create safety risks. Santa Ana officials have directed city staff to draft a similar policy.

In addition, Garden Grove's resolution warns that a visiting delegation would be required to pay for any necessary police services if it fails to comply with the policy.

Vietnamese Americans have expressed outrage in recent weeks over the potential hosting of visitors from a country that they say is without basic human rights or religious freedom.

The U.S. reestablished diplomatic ties with Vietnam in 1995, and there have been dozens of visiting delegations to Orange County over the years.

Garden Grove "is certainly the wrong place to bring these visitors from Vietnam. They can bring them to Las Vegas," said Mayor-elect Bruce Broadwater, noting that one-third of his city's 170,000 residents are Vietnamese. "We're sensitive to the needs of the Vietnamese community."

Westminster in 2004 became the first city in Orange County to adopt such a policy, which eventually expired. But immigrant activists say that city and at least one other are considering new resolutions.

"Now I expect Westminster and Fountain Valley to be next. And I expect that we will hear about this issue again and again," said Nghia Xuan Nguyen, president of the Vietnamese Community of Southern California, a leading activist group. "This is important because our solidarity makes us stronger. We will influence others to do what is right."

With increasing political power from a growing Vietnamese American base across California, Nguyen noted that lobbying for the resolutions "could lead to a movement like what happened with the flag."

He was referring to the bold yellow flag with three red stripes that represents prewar Vietnam. Since 2003, more than 200 cities across the U.S. have adopted a resolution recognizing it as the Vietnamese Heritage and Freedom Flag -- and the official flag for Vietnamese Americans -- despite opposition from Vietnam's government, which banned the emblem.

The Vietnamese government is "trying to reach deeper and deeper into this country" to create ties, said Huu Dinh Vo, chairman of the Federation of Vietnamese American Communities of USA, at a news conference Saturday in Westminster's Little Saigon to introduce his group. "We will not give up fighting against them, and we will continue until there is democracy."

More local officials will support these resolutions discouraging foreign visits, Vo added, "because helping the Vietnamese community allows them to help themselves. They need our votes."
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Lines of division grow in ASEAN

By Roberto Tofani, Asia Times December 4,2012

Last month's Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit held in Phnom Penh opened with high expectations and closed with an ambivalence that has cast new doubts on the 10-member grouping's common destiny. While the controversy over competing territorial claims in the South China Sea issue was the most obvious point of tension, the lack of a common policy on the implementation of a Human Rights Declaration (AHRD) and disagreements on the construction of upstream dams on the Mekong river underscored the association's rising divisions.

Earlier, many observers expected ASEAN to produce a binding code of conduct for the South China Sea during Cambodia's chairmanship of the grouping, 10 years after the signing by ASEAN and China's foreign ministers of the non-binding Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC). The consensus broke down during the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM) held in Phnom Penh in July, with the grouping failing to agree on a joint communique for the first time in 45 years due to dissension on the South China Sea.

Many analysts suspected China had put pressure on Cambodia to refrain from mentioning the issue in the communique, despite strong lobbying from the Philippines and Vietnam for its inclusion. The subsequent announcement on July 20 of a six-point principle on the South China Sea made by Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong, with consensus on the document promoted by regional giant Indonesia, was viewed at the time as a stopgap measure meant to paper over deep differences on the issue.

At last month's United Nations General Assembly in New York, Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario attempted in a speech to win global support for his country's rule of law position vis-a-vis China over the ongoing territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Manila's wish to internationalize the issue was clear well before the beginning of last month's ASEAN summit, which was attended by global leaders, including US President Barack Obama.

On the eve of the summit, despite China's warning that the South China Sea issue should not overshadow the event, ASEAN members said they were ready for formal talks with their bigger neighbor, even though they were still debating internally their own version of a maritime code. Later on the same day, however, Cambodian foreign ministry official Kao Kim Hourn said that Southeast Asian leaders "had decided that they will not internationalize the South China Sea from now on".

Philippine President Benigno Aquino strongly rebuked the Cambodian statement, saying no such agreement had been reached. The competing statements underscored the rising pressures on ASEAN unity and the grouping's inability to mediate members' often conflicting national interests.

A photo released by Xinhua, the official Chinese government media, on November 22 showing a smiling Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen inaugurating a China-funded national road in Prey Veng province in southeastern Cambodia, demonstrated to some at the summit Beijing's use of bilateral aid to push its wider regional ambitions.

Whether the situation changes after Cambodia relinquishes the chairmanship at the end of this year is still a wildcard. In 2013, Brunei, which also has a contested stake in the South China Sea, will take up ASEAN's rotational leadership. Meanwhile, ASEAN Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan, a Thai national who many believe has notched several diplomatic successes during his five-year tenure, will step down at the end of 2012. Thailand does not have a stake in the South China Sea and has attempted to play a mediating role in the conflict.

ASEAN's next Secretary General, Vietnamese diplomat Le Luong Minh, is an experienced diplomat with distinguished service at the United Nations. He will need to contend with not only the territorial disputes in which his country is directly involved but challenges as diverse as Myanmar's democratic transition, the joint promotion of human rights as established by the AHRD and rising regional tensions caused by the construction of dams in Laos that threaten to undermine the environment and livelihoods of riparian villagers in downstream countries such as Cambodia and Vietnam.

The latter two issues pose serious threats to future ASEAN unity. After the grouping's inauguration of the Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights in 2009, ASEAN's 10 members adopted the AHRD. However, the AHRD was strongly criticized by regional and international organizations as a paper tiger for excluding civil society organizations from the drafting process and deferring to "regional and national contexts" in the mechanism's implementation.

"There is no consensus on what to do after the 10 leaders adopted the AHRD," said Termsak Chalermpalanupap, who recently retired from the ASEAN Secretariat. "Ideally the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) should use the AHRD as the basis for drafting the ASEAN Convention on Human Rights."

Some believe the forced relocation of thousands of Lao villagers to make way for new hydropower projects should be taken up by ASEAN's new human-rights body. That seems unlikely though considering the emphasis individual countries place on ramping up power generation and infrastructure development, particularly with the implementation of a new ASEAN economic community looming on the horizon in 2015.

"ASEAN is moving at its own pace to form an ASEAN Community by 2015 but human rights is an issue that has the potential to be divisive," said Carlyle Thayer, an emeritus professor from the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defense Force Academy in Canberra. He believes that while Cambodia's chairmanship has accentuated differences inside the association, there is little risk that the grouping dissolves.

Indeed, the Lao government recently resumed construction of the controversial, Thailand-backed Xayaburi Dam project without regional consensus and above strong complaints from Cambodia and Vietnam. Under the 1995 Mekong Agreement, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam agreed to cooperate to "optimize the multiple-use and mutual benefits" of water resources and to "minimize the harmful effects that might result from natural occurrences and man-made activities".

As the Mekong River Commission's member countries have not formally agreed to build the project, Laos has been accused of violating the non-binding consensus reached among ASEAN members. Moreover, the decision to go ahead with the Xayaburi dam will apparently pave the way for the construction of a second dam proposed for the Mekong River in Laos and potentially stoke new ASEAN-China tensions.

Designed by Chinese developer Datang Overseas Investment Co Ltd, the Pak Beng dam was first envisioned in a memorandum of understanding signed between the Lao and Chinese governments in August 2007 and civil society groups say will have adverse downstream impacts on the environment and livelihoods.

Roberto Tofani is a freelance journalist and analyst covering Southeast Asia. He is also the co-founder of PlanetNext (www.planetnext.net), an association of journalists committed to the concept of "information for change".
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What tyrants fear most: social media

By Joel Brinkley published at Chicago Tribune November 27,2012

Dictators and Communists

versus

Social Media

Most of the world's dictators share a common fear, and it's not of the United States, NATO, the United Nations or any outside entity. No, the force that most threatens them is social media.

Originally designed as enhanced online chat forums for young Americans, Facebook, Twitter, blogs and the rest have spread around the world and are now being used as cudgels against authoritarian leaders in places like Vietnam, Russia, Belarus and Bahrain. In those states and so many others, the leaders are attacking tweeters and bloggers as if they were armed revolutionaries. And the repression is spreading.

In India a few days ago, a 21-year-old medical student posted a mildly critical comment about a Hindu political figure who'd just died. Within 24 hours, police arrested her and a friend who had "liked" the student's Facebook post and charged them with engaging in hateful, offensive speech -- this in one of the world's strongest democracies. (Police let them go a few days later.)

A more typical example comes from Belarus. There, President Alexander Lukashenko, commonly known as Europe's last dictator, seems to be fighting online verbiage all the time.

Recently, Ecuador's Supreme Court turned down an extradition request from Belarus for a blogger who fled there after the government charged him with fraud. Alexander Barankov had been blogging about widespread government corruption. That particular extradition denial stands as a bold demonstration of the fraud charge's absurdity because Rafael Correa, Ecuador's president and an acolyte of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, is no champion of press freedom. Far from it. And yet he defied the Belarus request.

Baranakov is hardly the only example. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe declaimed Lukashenko's record of arresting journalists and bloggers, saying "unfortunately recent detentions and searches in Minsk and elsewhere in the country show continued efforts to muzzle dissenting voices and clamp down on freedom of expression online."

Iran, not surprisingly, is even tougher. Bloggers are given long prison terms or sentenced to death, charged with "enmity against God" and subverting national security. Human-rights groups say the bloggers and tweeters are tortured in jail. In mid-November, one died in police custody for unexplained reasons.

Iran is actually trying to set up its own internal Internet. There, the government says, "unregulated social media and other content likely to encourage dissent" simply won't be available.

But the sad truth is, the dictators whose people are the most repressed -- locked in abject poverty -- don't have to worry about the social-media problem. In Laos, Cambodia, Eritrea, Mozambique and a handful of other states, most people have no access to computers or cell phones. Many of them are illiterate and couldn't use the devices even if they had them. That leaves their leaders to trample over their rights with near-full impunity.

China demonstrates this better than any nation. The state's economic-development program pulled millions of Chinese out of poverty. Previously, Chinese were relatively quiescent. But with prosperity came a new understanding of how venal and repressive the Chinese Communist Party really is. So millions of Chinese took to new social-media platforms to complain.

Now China spends more money on internal security -- including a massive online censorship office -- than it does on its military. Persistent online critics are imprisoned or worse. That demonstrates a clear fact: The Chinese government fears its own people far more than it does any outside power.

Other states are catching up. Russia is implementing a massive new online Internet filtering system, ostensibly to protect children from offensive sites. But human-rights advocates are warning that it can just as easily be used to block social-media commentary the government doesn't like.

In Oman this fall, six people were jailed for defaming the state on Facebook. That came after the National Human Rights Commission of Oman (an oxymoron if I've ever heard one) labeled those posts and others "negative writings that violate Islamic principles."

Nearby, Bahrain is trying to have it both ways. On the one hand, it jailed a human-rights advocate for tweeting criticism of the nation's tyrannical prime minister. Then authorities arrested four more Bahrainis for Twitter posts considered to be critical of the king.

At the same time, though, the government allowed one of the state's biggest companies, a telecom provider named Zain Bahrain, to sponsor a major business conference there, undoubtedly because it will be quite profitable for the island's hotels, restaurants and other travel-related businesses.

What was the conference about? It's title: The Social Media Masters Forum.

(Joel Brinkley, a professor of journalism at Stanford University, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning former foreign correspondent for the New York Times.)
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