After Huế, now Đà Nẵng: Authorities are stepping up actions against people who interact with “reactionary” pages.
The Latest: From June 10 to 20, Đà Nẵng police summoned, “warned, and educated” 79 people who had interacted with and commented on “reactionary” pages such as “thoibao.de,” “Lê Trung Khoa,” and “Nguyễn Văn Đài” from 2020 to the present.
The Details: According to the police, most of the alleged violators did not fully understand the “plots and tactics of hostile and reactionary forces in cyberspace” and therefore “helped spread toxic information.”
- After receiving “propaganda,” the 79 individuals “clearly recognized their wrongdoing,” “voluntarily” removed comments and violating content, left the groups, and signed pledges not to repeat the conduct.
- Đà Nẵng police are continuing to complete files to “handle” more than 20 other people.
- The agency also stressed that in today’s cyberspace, every act leaves a “trace” and must be “subject to legal regulation.”
Mixed Online Reactions: The comments section under the post on the Đà Nẵng police Facebook page drew mixed reactions.
- An account named Nguyễn Đông Thành wrote: “Other provinces should follow this thoroughly.”
- Meanwhile, a comment by Hung Ngo, which received 273 interactions, asked, “Is there now a crime of interacting too? Haha.”
- Another comment by Đỗ Chí Hải, which received 226 likes, said: “All I can do is laugh.”
The Background: Since early June 2026, an account belonging to Lê Trung Khoa has begun posting about his participation, along with several activists, in a European Parliament conference where they accused the Vietnamese authorities of committing “transnational repression” against Vietnamese people overseas.
On June 16, the European Parliament passed a resolution on combating transnational repression.
- Khoa said that the resolution gives European countries a basis to push back and potentially impose sanctions over acts of transnational repression by governments accused of carrying out such activities, including Việt Nam.
In response to the allegations, multiple police agencies and state media outlets have spoken out to reject them.
- Đà Nẵng police said that these were all acts of “inference, distortion, and smearing Party and state leaders” for the purpose of “sabotaging the Vietnamese state.” The agency asserted that there is absolutely no such thing as “transnational repression” by the Vietnamese government.
Earlier, on Dec. 31, 2025, the Hà Nội People’s Court tried Lê Trung Khoa and Nguyễn Văn Đài in absentia and sentenced each of them to 17 years in prison for “making, storing, distributing, or disseminating information, documents, and materials aimed at opposing the Socialist Republic of Việt Nam,” under Clause 2, Article 117 of the Penal Code.
- After the trial, both Khoa and Đài publicly rejected the verdicts.
Why It Matters: In recent years, many social media users in Việt Nam have been summoned, fined, or required to sign pledges over posts, comments, or participation in Facebook groups.
- The information that led to penalties has often been described by authorities as “fake news” or “false information,” or as content criticizing the Communist Party, the state, and senior leaders.
- Recently, however, the frequency and nature of these summonses have become increasingly serious.
- On May 20, Huế police “summoned” 45 Facebook account holders for frequently interacting with “reactionary” pages linked to Lê Trung Khoa and Nguyễn Văn Đài.
Huỳnh Lam wrote this article in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on June 24, 2026. The Vietnamese Magazine has the copyrights to the English translation.
