Vietnam’s new president, To Lam, is one of many world leaders with poor human rights records visiting New York City this week for the United Nations General Assembly high-level meeting. He will meet with United States President Joe Biden on Wednesday and is expected to meet with Meta and Google executives.
As minister of public security, Lam oversaw a massive crackdown on dissent, with hundreds of journalists and rights defenders arrested and detained. Among them was environmental activist Hoang Thi Minh Hong, who had attended Columbia University as an Obama Scholar. An outcry within the Columbia community apparently compelled Vietnamese authorities to release Hong on September 20, right before Lam left for New York.
A longstanding political prisoner, Tran Huynh Duy Thuc, was also given an amnesty and released, eight months shy of completing his 16-year sentence. Thuc reportedly refused to comply with the amnesty, noting he had not applied for it. “Since I was innocent, there was no reason for me to be amnestied,” he wrote, saying it was done to burnish Lam’s image ahead of his New York trip. In what Thuc decried as “absurd,” guards stormed his cell, saying he had “no right to remain in prison,” and put him on a flight home to Ho Chi Minh City.
Such autocratic absurdity surrounds Lam. In 2021, a video went viral of him eating a US$2,000 gold leaf encrusted steak at a London restaurant. After long-time satirist Bui Tuan Lam posted a parody of the meal on social media, authorities arrested and sentenced him to five and a half years in prison.
Vietnamese authorities have frequently detained and prosecuted dissidents for using social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube to engage in free speech, including Pham Van Bach and Nguyen Vu Binh, PEN award winner Pham Doan Trang, and many others. The prominent investigative reporter Huy Duc remains jailed since his arrest in June.
Biden and the Meta and Google executives who meet Lam this week should not assume that freeing two critics is evidence of reform. They should raise concerns about all those wrongfully prosecuted for their online posts, publicly call for their release, and seek action that demonstrates that freedom of expression online in Vietnam will be protected.