Editor’s Note: This piece complements our coverage of the June 10, 2026 Brussels conference, “Việt Nam’s Transnational Repression: Protecting Human Rights Defenders in Europe & Elsewhere.” Domestic and international strategies of dissent-suppression are inseparable: understanding Việt Nam’s mechanisms of state control at home illuminates the strategies it deploys against diaspora communities abroad. The evidence presented here demonstrates how repression transcends national boundaries.

For many years, international observers and analysts have tended to view political repression in Việt Nam primarily as a domestic issue or, at most, a regional one. Attention has largely focused on the widespread use of provisions such as Articles 117 and 331 of the Vietnamese Penal Code, which are employed to prosecute journalists, bloggers, activists, independent scholars, and ordinary citizens who criticize the ruling Communist Party.