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• Police Question High School Student Due to Social Media Post Critical of the Communist Party
• Several Groups Urge the EU to Continue Designating Vietnam a ‘Non-Market Economy’
• Authorities Scrutinize Monastery Orphanage After Head Monk Praises Barefoot Pilgrim Thich Minh Tue

Police Question High School Student About Social Media Post Critical of Communist Party

The police in northern Yen Bai Province on Vietnam’s National Day, Sept. 2, questioned Chu Ngoc Quang Vinh, 17, a student from Nguyen Tat Thanh Specialized High School in Yen Bai, about an “inappropriate” posting on his social media that criticized the Communist Party. Vinh’s posting has drawn massive media attention, mainly after he won the monthly prize at The Road to Mount Olympia (Đường lên đỉnh Olympia), an educational quiz show hosted for Vietnamese high school students. The annual competition winner could win a scholarship to study in Australia.

A day before, on Sept. 1, the Yen Bai High School student published a posting on Facebook to only 16 of his online friends, saying he applied to compete in the quiz show because he wanted to leave the country and live abroad. After learning and reading from Western materials, Vinh wrote that he realized the Vietnamese Communist Party is not a flawless political entity as many people were taught to think. He added that after knowing the whole truth, he discovered that everything he “had learned in school for so long was not entirely true” and that “the [Communist] Party was an evil force that only knows how to deceive people.”