Overnight, their logo, the number 258 with a pair of handcuffs replacing the number 8, encircled and crossed out, with a tiny picture of a pen with wings flying out, popped up everywhere on Facebook like mushrooms after the rain. Many bloggers and Facebookers have adapted the logo as their avatar. From all over the world, but mostly from Vietnam, they stepped out to show support for the Statement, by signing their real names on paper, an act defining their total lack of fear in revealing their true identities, and posting a photograph of it on Facebook.
This movement, the first of its kind, is their response to the communist government's latest violation of the freedom of expression of its citizens, by arresting three more bloggers: Truong Duy Nhat, Pham Viet Dao and Dinh Nhat Uy.
Over the last twelves months, the Vietnamese government attempted to silence the voices of its political dissidents with a series of arrests accompanied by heavy jail terms. Facebookers Nguyen Phuong Uyen and Dinh Nguyen Kha were arrested and sentenced to 6 and 8 years in prison respectively, for the distribution of the Yellow Flag and leaflets protesting against the Chinese invasion of Paracel and Spratly islands. Many others were arrested, beaten up savagely or put under constant supervision just for attending outdoor picnics where flyers bearing the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights were given out as topic for discussions.
While those on the outside were harrassed, detained and bashed, those already in jails were also targetted by the police and prison guards. There were many reports of prisoners so severely mistreated that they had to either revolt violently or went on hunger strikes. They reported that their daily food quota were drastically reduced, that many were put into isolated cells on shackles and being beaten up for no reason. Violent protest erupted at Xuan Loc prison where several political dissisdents like Tran Huynh Duy Thuc and Viet Khang were held amongst common criminals. In another jail, Cu Huy Ha Vu, a Doctor of Laws, went on a hunger strike for 25 days and only yesterday, news leaked that jailed blogger Dieu Cay Nguyen Van Hai was already on his 25th day of hunger strike and that his health was in critical condition.
On top of that, there were rumours that the Vietnamese government had a list of some 20 more bloggers it planned to arrest using the Article 258 of the 1999 Penal Code, amended in 2009. Many bloggers voiced their concerns over the ambiguity of this particular Article. According to it, the police can make arrests based on “crime of abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the State, the legitimate rights and interests of organizations and/or citizens”. It is so vague and ill defined that it can be interpreted in many ways to frame basically anyone. This article is in breach of the Article 19 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
So far, some 70 bloggers have already signed their names and many more are expected to join in over the next few days. In the past, many bloggers had to hide their identities to avoid being detected and arrested by the communist government, but as time passed, more and more have gained the courage to defiantly face the regime in their demands for freedom and democracy. The recent words spoken in front of the United Nations General Assembly by Malala Yousafzai, the 16 years old activist from Pakistan, echoed in the Vietnamese bloggers' s call to unite and to stand up for their rights “weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born”.
