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This Tuesday came into force in Vietnam a law on cybersecurity that gives the authorities extensive powers and the means to monitor the Internet. In a country where the media is under the control of the Communist Party and all dissent is severely repressed, this new law is a new blow to freedom of expression.
The Vietnamese government, which already controls the entire media and has laws severely punishing dissenting voices, is now seeking to muzzle the country further.
For a little more than two years and the arrival in power of the conservative wing, the single party uses and abuses articles of the Penal Code that punish heavy prison sentences anyone who dares to criticize power.
The draconian new law that comes into force on Tuesday is supposed to thwart cyberattacks. In reality, it aims to monitor, control, hunt down and close all the accounts deemed "hostile and reactionary", in other words, threatening the regime.
The text thus forces Internet companies to remove inappropriate content within 24 hours and to transmit the users' private data to the authorities.
No less than 55 million Vietnamese have accounts on Facebook or more than half of the population. A danger estimates Hanoi who deployed last year a cyber unit of 10,000 strong to control the trade on the Web and sue Internet users refractory.