Dissident Spotlight: Tran Anh Kim
Tran Anh Kim was sentenced to over a decade in prison over accusations of forming a new political party.
Vietnam has been a one-party state since the Vietnam War, when the Communist North reunited with the democratic South of the country. Communist parties don’t allow other parties to challenge the party’s right to reshape society as it sees fit.
Tran Anh Kim was one of many activists who wrote about the need for reform within the Communist Party. In a top-down system that builds its authority on previous leaders, criticisms of the party are criticisms of party leaders from the past and present.
Vietnam’s government cracked down on Kim and many other dissidents multiple times. Kim was initially a soldier and was arrested twice for alleged misuse of military funds in the 1990s. He joined a pro-democracy organization in 2006, beginning his career as a human rights activist and writer.
In 2009, he was sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison for “carrying out activities that aim to overthrow the people’s administration.” Kim had the nerve to join a pro-democracy party in an undemocratic country.
He was released in 2015 and shortly arrested after allegedly starting an organization that aimed to overthrow the Communist Party. Kim was sentenced to 13 years in prison and is still serving his sentence as his health worsens.
What Freedom of Association Really Means
Vietnam’s Communist Party sees any challenge to its ideology as an existential threat. As an authoritarian party, it cannot tolerate being one of several parties, even if it were to remain the dominant one.
Activists like Kim are reminders to the people that other viewpoints not only exist but also deserve to be represented in power.
Supporting an alternative form of government that cracks down on human rights abusers shouldn’t be an offense punishable by 13 years in prison. It should be a commonsense right protected by the force of law, not just words on a page that Vietnam’s government ignores with impugnity.
It’s a harsh lesson for anyone who believes their country’s Constitution is worth more than the rule of law enforcing its protections in practice.