Võ Văn Quản wrote this article in Vietnamese and published it in Luat Khoa Magazine on May 4, 2021.
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Recently, Luật Khoa Magazine published an article highlighting the role of the automobile industry in fueling nationalism—particularly VinFast in Vietnam—and explaining why this brand will continue to receive preferential treatment and protection as part of the contemporary government’s development strategy.
This week, the owner of Go Go TV, a VinFast customer dissatisfied with his Lux model, has been accused by the company of “causing public confusion.” In its statement, VinFast appeared to label Trần Văn Hoàng—who spent nearly one billion đồng on a Lux A 2.0—as a ‘dishonest customer’ simply because he pointed out 10 defects in the car. More strikingly, Hoàng had taken the vehicle to authorized VinFast service centers 10 times, strictly following the company’s own procedures, yet the problems remained unresolved.
VinFast then announced that it had reported the case to … the police, implicitly signaling that it would take appropriate measures to punish this so-called “dishonest customer.”
Many will say VinFast is taking advantage of its status as a national brand and cozy ties within the state to sic the police on its own customer—simply because he left a few unflattering comments about their product online. But this reflex of “telling people’s wrongdoings to the cops” over ordinary speech and expression is nothing new in Việt Nam.
This article aims to unpack the roots of this entrenched legal culture.
- First, the government itself leads by example, frequently using the police to silence its critics.
- Second, Việt Nam’s legal system contains a host of tools that can be wielded to suppress “unpleasant” voices and interfere in civil disputes.
- Third, the country’s court system is too weak and non-independent to offer a viable alternative, giving neither citizens nor businesses any real incentive to take their disputes to court.
Together, these forces have created a culture that corrodes free expression, chills dissent, and warps the very idea of justice in Việt Nam.
The Government Leads the Way
The use of state power to ensure no one speaks differently has long been an inseparable chromosome in the genetic makeup of the contemporary Vietnamese state.
Whether one criticizes corrupt officials, challenges a state policy, or questions the Communist Party’s monopoly, the “standard” reaction from the state apparatus is often arrest and imprisonment. The recent cases of independent journalists like Phạm Đoan Trang and Phạm Chí Dũng reveal a ruling structure that is perpetually searching for “enemies,” even among those who advocate no violence.
But one does not need to tackle “sensitive” national topics to attract the hawk-like gaze of the police. Take the case of Nguyễn Văn Nhanh, a resident of Đồng Nai, who had a grievance with two local officials (Vũ Thị Minh Châu and Lương Thị Lan) over an irrigation project. After posting videos and articles online criticizing them, he was arrested in 2020 and charged with “abusing democratic freedoms” under Article 331 of the Penal Code.
In a livestream with only about 4,000 views, Nhanh’s “crime” was to vent his frustration, saying things like: “Vũ Thị Minh Châu is a person without morals… if she knows but says nothing, she is cruel,” and “…if, as a cadre, you cannot resolve the suffering of the people, then don’t be a cadre—just retire.”
These were clearly the words of a citizen who did not know how to use formal legal tools to resolve his grievances with the authorities. Yet in Việt Nam’s legal culture, it was enough to mobilize the full machinery of criminal prosecution.
What was the Outcome of this case?
Nguyễn Văn Nhanh was swiftly prosecuted and faced up to three years in prison. The official investigation report reached a conclusion that could make one break out in a sweat: “The purpose was to lower the honor and reputation, and to put pressure on Ms. Châu, Ms. Lan, as well as the People’s Committee of Trảng Bom District, to resolve the matter according to Nhanh’s demands and wishes.”
Two video clips with a few thousand views were officially deemed capable of coercing the two highest officials in the district.
The government’s arbitrary use of coercive tools to resolve disputes over speech—whether large or small—has fostered a widespread legal habit and mindset that anyone can “run and report to the police” whenever someone says something they dislike. This, in turn, has entrenched the idea within investigative agencies that they are the ultimate arbiters in disputes over expression.
The combination of this legal habit, this mindset, and the state’s unchecked empowerment of the police in matters of speech is what has produced the bizarre and repressive legal culture of “running and reporting to the police.”
A “Weapons Arsenal” Against Free Expression
In democratic systems like the United States, disputes over speech between private parties are typically handled through civil defamation law—a legal arena where it is famously difficult for public officials to win. In Việt Nam, however, the Penal Code provides investigative police with no fewer than four different criminal statutes to silence a speaker, an astonishing number by global legal standards.
The first and most infamous of these is Article 117, once known by its former number, Article 88. It criminalizes the act of producing, storing, or disseminating information aimed at “opposing the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.”
The power of this provision lies in its deliberate vagueness. It offers no specific definition of what content, language, or form of expression constitutes “opposing” the state. As a result, how the law is interpreted rests almost entirely in the hands of the investigative agency itself, with no concrete legal standard. Anyone who has ever criticized any state or Party body may find the police knocking at their door.
But Article 117 targets only statements directed at the government itself. What other tools does the Penal Code have to offer for speech that criticizes an official but is not necessarily related to their public authority?
Article 156 is another criminal statute that is often levied against free expression. This charge is often applied whenever investigative authorities wish to publicly discredit a speaker’s arguments as false.
A stark example of its use can be found in the case of lecturer Phạm Đình Quý. He was arrested in late 2020 by Đắk Lắk police after he accused a powerful official—Bùi Văn Cường, then the sitting Party Secretary of Đắk Lắk—of plagiarizing a doctoral dissertation.
Quý was arrested while dining with his fiancée in Hồ Chí Minh City. He was later transferred to Đắk Lắk before his family could hire a lawyer. Just days later, the press, citing the police, reported that Quý had “bowed his head and confessed to his crime.”
But what if the expression contains nothing that can be considered fabricated? For that, the crime of “insulting others” under Article 155 is always ready to join the battle. The elements of this offense are notoriously vague; as long as the police deem that an expression has “seriously offended the honor or dignity” of an individual, a prison sentence awaits.
Because of this vagueness, the colloquial, frustrated language used by Nguyễn Văn Nhanh to criticize his local leaders—as mentioned earlier—is treated with the same legal seriousness as posting someone’s private photos online. A legal profession that ought to be the most rigorous instead grants the police unlimited authority to interfere with ordinary speech.
Finally, there is Article 331, a provision that embodies all the double standards and arbitrariness of Việt Nam’s criminal law to create the catch-all offense of “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the State, the lawful rights and interests of organizations and individuals.”
As the most frequently used provision after Article 117, Article 331 has been invoked to arrest and investigate numerous well-known journalists, including Phan Bùi Bảo Thy and the reporters of the Báo Sạch (Clean Newspaper) group.
When the state is armed to the teeth with a “weapon” like this—one that can be applied in any context, under any circumstance, and interpreted in any way the authorities can imagine—it is little wonder that both the public and those in power alike have come to rely on the police to resolve disputes over simple speech and expression.
A Weak Judiciary
Even if a country’s laws are clumsy or naive, what keeps its judicial system from turning into a farce is the independence of its courts and the quality of its judges.
The laws in the U.S. and Europe are far from perfect, but the key difference is that their courts are prepared to rule against the wishes of investigative agencies and the government itself. They serve as venues for resolving real disputes, not for rubber-stamping the predetermined wishes of the authorities.
Perhaps no example illustrates this better than the 2016 Apple v. FBI case, where the most powerful investigative agency in the world had to go to court to “plead” for access to a suspect’s device.
In Việt Nam, the situation is the opposite. The decision-making power lies with the investigative agency, and the courts are directly controlled by the executive authorities and the Communist Party.
This lack of independence is reflected in the quality of their judgments. In speech-related cases, court rulings often consist of little more than a copy-paste of the police report, followed by the perfunctory refrain: “the right person, the right crime.”
This culture of “running to the police” is the natural product of an environment where the courts cannot be trusted. And if spending your own money to buy a product does not grant you the right to complain without being hauled before the police, then the very concept of freedom of expression no longer exists to be “abused” in the first place.