Vietnam's authorities documented 56 arrests in 2025 under broadly written laws, a figure double that of 2022 and marking the third consecutive year of increases. These arrests target activists, dissidents, and ordinary citizens deemed a threat to the Communist Party’s rule. The actual number of individuals suppressed is believed to be much higher, according to Ben Swanton, co-director of The 88 Project.
General Secretary To Lam, who has led the Communist Party since 2024 and was elected president this year, presides over a state that “routinely weaponizes criminal law” to quash any challenge. Swanton described the country under To Lam as a “literal police state that tolerates no dissent.” This represents a significant regression from the limited openness of the 2010s, when some civil society engagement was possible.
The State's Iron Fist
The crackdown is largely driven by the ruling party's fear of an uprising, specifically a “color revolution” like Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution or the Philippines’ 1986 Yellow Revolution. This fear is shared by the Communist Party in neighboring China, which has also been accused of stifling critics. China and Vietnam agreed earlier this year to “prioritize political security and enhance efforts to prevent and resist color revolutions,” as reported by the Chinese state-run Xinhua News Agency. This alliance solidifies the regional commitment to suppressing any organized challenge to existing power structures.
Authorities are increasingly relying on Article 331 of Vietnam’s penal code. This law makes it a crime, punishable by up to seven years in prison, to “abuse democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the state.” Previously little used, its scope has been deliberately enlarged.
Weaponizing the Law Against the Dispossessed
Human Rights Watch noted last year that Article 331 now reaches “beyond human rights and democracy dissidents ... to all those who voice any grievance with state or local Communist Party and government officials.” The law is being used to target ordinary people who use social media and other peaceful means to raise critical social issues. These issues include religious freedom, land rights, the rights of Indigenous people, and government and Communist Party corruption.
Among those arrested in 2025 under Article 331 were three men behind the YouTube channel “Nguoi Da Tin” — The Messenger. They faced allegations that their uploaded videos contained “distorted content” violating the statute. The 88 Project’s report details every politically related arrest identified in 2025, revealing the breadth of the state’s repression.
Suppressing Collective Action
Another arrest involved an activist for the minority Montagnard group, apprehended in Thailand and extradited to Vietnam. A dissident writer was accused of spreading “propaganda against the state.” Perhaps most revealing of the state’s priorities, a man who helped residents of Ha Tinh province file complaints demanding fair compensation for land expropriated for a new highway was also arrested. This directly exposes the state’s role in protecting its own interests, often at the expense of collective land rights.
The report concludes that the Vietnamese government has dealt “alarmingly severe punishments to longstanding targets like journalists and human rights activists.” It also shows an “increasing willingness to attack groups previously thought safe, such as political exiles and legal petitioners.” The state’s actions demonstrate a clear intent to eliminate all forms of organized and individual dissent, particularly when it challenges the expropriation of collective resources or exposes the corruption that underpins the ruling party's power. The Foreign Ministry has not responded to requests for comment on these findings.