Three Vietnamese bloggers have been found guilty of spreading anti-government propaganda and given jail sentences ranging from four to 12 years.
The cases against the two men and one woman are some of the most high-profile being prosecuted by the country’s Communist rulers.
One of the defendants’ lawyers, Ha Huy Son, says the three were found guilty of writing online articles “opposing the government” by a court in Ho Chi Minh City on Monday.
Mr Ha says Nguyen Van Hai was sentenced to 12 years, Ta Phong Tan received 10 and Phan Thanh Hai four years.
Here is the FT article. For all the talk about Asian economic miracles, keep in mind that Bolivia still has higher per capita income than does Vietnam.
I’m missing the point of this article. And not just why you linked to it, I’m not sure why it was even written at all.
“Three Vietnamese bloggers have been found guilty of spreading anti-government propaganda and given jail sentences ranging from four to 12 years.”
Is this supposed to be a bad sign? Because frankly, the fact that they weren’t executed out of hand, without any report of the incident ever reaching a reporter, sounds like an improvement to the Vietnamese status quo. It’s a Communist country, this is what Communists do. Once they take power, they imprison, torture and/or kill anyone who vocally disagrees with them.
This is a huge leap forward.
In the old days, the VC/NVA would have come and killed them and their entire families. If the traitors had been in one ville, they would have murdered half the rest of the ville, too.
I remember a few years back, some Vietnamese blogger was sent to the big house for “abusing democracy”.
Sounds like a good place to visit and open a branch of MRUniversity
Good for them. The most likely alternative to “communist” rule is to be American puppets. Rapid economic growth is impossible when folks from Harvard and other pro-democracy liberals, or marginally better open-borders libertarians, are deciding the major policies of your country. Vietnam recognizes that dissenters must be crushed for the greater long-term good of the collective; Asian cultures put even more emphasis on this then European authoritarians like me.
Check out Lee Kuan Yew’s memoirs if you want to know how seriously the distinctly non-democratic regime behind the #2 most economically free nation in the world (and one with the highest HDIs) took the advice of the bleeding-heart demotists at Harvard. (i.e., not much). The results of Lee Kuan Yew ignoring the advice of American do-gooders are quite evident upon arriving at Changi Airport.
Another point: what exactly gives Tyler Cowen the right to wage cultural imperialism and advocate imposing his beloved individualism on cultures which don’t value it? Even worse, it may actually be that Asian collectivism is ingrained psychologically due to different genetics compared to Whites.
And I have to wonder if Bolivia under the aymara-socialist Evo Morales will be better off in 20 years than a Vietnam which seems to follow a similar path as that laid out by Deng in China.
Huh, I guess this is neat. Are you for real Nyk? I guess I could expect this from some Vietnamese government employee. But maybe you’re just some high school hipster trying to be ironic? Such a classic left-reactionary reply!
It seems like the most robust and universal (non-genetic or culturally limited) strategy for rapid economic growth is to screw up for the prior century.
“what exactly gives Tyler Cowen the right to wage cultural imperialism and advocate imposing his beloved individualism on cultures which don’t value it”
The same thing that gives you the right to advocate imposing collectivist values on Tyler’s culture.
“dissenters must be crushed for the greater long-term good of the collective”
Greater long-term good of the collective?!?! Come one, these people were speaking against corruption and state’s abuse! Since when corruption and abuse are good for collective?
“imposing his beloved individualism on cultures which don’t value it”
Such a nonsensical assumption! Where is your proof? Who says that we Vietnamese are not individualist?
People, please. If you want to talk about Vietnam, please at least do some research about us first.
For all the talk about market liberalisation, China, Vietnam and other socialist countries are still oppressive oligarchies that must be destroyed.
Fine. You pay for it. Count me out.
Nyk says “anyone who opposes authority must be destroyed”. Willitts says “anyone who imposes authority must be destroyed”. Is it really best to resolve this kind of political conflict through immediate resort to maximum violence?
Of course not. That’s why they’re ranting on MR rather than effecting change in the world. Thankfully few countries operate by the whims of online rants!
And yet they imprison bloggers because they are afraid of words. They are less mature than my toddler.
“Is it really best to resolve this kind of political conflict through immediate resort to maximum violence?”
Anything else will be merely a proxy for that violence (for example show of strength), or otherwise reveal that the two sides don’t really care that much about their beliefs.
Don’t feed the troll.
Free speech comes right after learning to decapitate your enemies.
The option taken by reactionaries everywhere (esp. on the far left): Execute them for dissent first, then ask if they’d like some more free speech!
Far left? I think you have your echo chamber talking points wrong. For shame. Lefties are already commie socialist marxists. You’re welcome.
Besides which, it’s conservative hawks (read: neocons) that want to invade countries and depose dictators.
The real point of the article , for the hyper educated globerati of MR, is that those bloggers were having 0 marginal impact. The jail sentences were pointless.
So Vietnam is not a culture? Methinks jailing dissenters is very much a part of the culture that is Vietnam. It’s not like they ever had a polity that didn’t jail dissenters.
When the first nation decided to abolish slavery, supporters of slavery could argue for cultural tradition, too.
Same with the first nation which abolished the death penalty etc. 300 years ago, it was very much integral part of the mainstream Euro culture to attend public beheadings and hangings.
Cultures may change, and sometimes it may be outright desirable for cultures to change.
IIRC, spandrel is mostly annoyed at a perceived over-use of “the culture that is” posts regarding a specific country, which is why he wrote it this way.
And forcing the breaking of other people’s cultural traditions is very much a part of my culture.
Thus the cultural relativism, that you seem to hold, would imply that I should go stop them.
If cultural relativism is correct, then:
Britain was right when it hung people who burned widows.
America was right when it conquered Japan and forcibly altered its culture.
Both were culturally acceptable things to do in British and American culture.
Marian, I am totally agree with your thoughts. Keep doing these type of work.
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