Vietnam arrested at least 56 activists, dissidents, and critics of the Communist Party in 2025 — double the number from just three years earlier — using vague criminal statutes to silence anyone who challenges government authority, according to a report released Monday by The 88 Project, a human rights group focused on Vietnam.
The documented arrests represent the third consecutive year of increases. But the actual toll is almost certainly higher, said Ben Swanton, co-director of the organization. The report includes only cases where defendants could be identified by name and tracked through Vietnam's opaque legal system.
A Police State Under To Lam
The crackdown intensified under To Lam, the country's former top security official who became general secretary of the Communist Party in 2024 and was elected president earlier this year. The report says Vietnam under To Lam "routinely weaponizes criminal law" to crush dissent.
"With the ascendancy of To Lam, the country has become a literal police state that tolerates no dissent," Swanton said. "This represents a serious regression from the period of relative openness in the 2010s when some dissent was tolerated and civil society groups were able to engage in policy activism."
The arrests are driven by fears of a popular uprising — what authorities call a "color revolution," referencing the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine or the 1986 Yellow Revolution in the Philippines, according to the report. It's a fear shared by neighboring China, which has been accused of using similar tactics to stifle critics. Despite maritime disputes that have strained relations, China and Vietnam agreed earlier this year to jointly "prioritize political security and enhance efforts to prevent and resist color revolutions," China's state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.
Vietnam's Foreign Ministry didn't respond to requests for comment on the report's findings.
Expanding Reach of Vague Laws
Authorities are increasingly relying on Article 331 of Vietnam's penal code, which criminalizes any "abuse of democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the state" — a charge punishable by up to seven years in prison. Previously little used, the statute has become a catch-all weapon against ordinary citizens raising concerns about land rights, religious freedom, Indigenous rights, or corruption.
"Authorities have enlarged the scope and application of Article 331 so that it reaches further into society, beyond human rights and democracy dissidents ... to all those who voice any grievance with state or local Communist Party and government officials," New York-based Human Rights Watch wrote in a report last year.
Among those arrested under Article 331 in 2025 were three men behind the YouTube channel "Nguoi Da Tin' — The Messenger" — accused of uploading videos with "distorted content" that violated the statute, The 88 Project reported. Other arrests detailed in the report included an activist for the minority Montagnard group who was arrested in Thailand and extradited to Vietnam, a dissident writer accused of spreading "propaganda against the state," and a man who helped residents of Ha Tinh province file complaints demanding fair compensation for land expropriated for a new highway.
Targeting New Groups
"The Vietnamese government has dealt alarmingly severe punishments to longstanding targets like journalists and human rights activists, while displaying an increasing willingness to attack groups previously thought safe, such as political exiles and legal petitioners," the report said.
"The Vietnamese authorities' increased use of Article 331 is a little known facet of the government's expanding crackdown on ordinary people who are seeking to use social media and other peaceful means to publicly raise important social issues, including religious freedom, land rights, rights of Indigenous people, and government and Communist Party corruption," Human Rights Watch wrote.
Why This Matters:
The systematic expansion of political arrests in Vietnam reveals how authoritarian governments use deliberately vague laws to criminalize dissent without appearing to outlaw free speech entirely. When statutes like Article 331 can be stretched to cover YouTube videos, land-rights petitions, or criticism of local officials, no one is safe from prosecution for exercising basic democratic freedoms. The doubling of arrests since 2022 shows a government moving in the opposite direction of democratic norms at a time when civil society engagement is essential for addressing corruption, environmental protection, and the rights of marginalized communities. The willingness to target even legal petitioners — people using official channels to seek redress — demonstrates that Vietnam's leadership sees any form of public accountability as a threat. For international partners weighing trade and diplomatic relationships, these arrests represent a test of whether economic engagement will be conditioned on respect for human rights or whether authoritarian crackdowns will be met with silence.