The Vietnamese government holds at least 128 prisoners of conscience in prisons across the country, a sharp rise from the 97 identified last year. Among these prisoners of conscience are an increasing number of people jailed for comments made on social media platforms such as Facebook, who now represent almost 10 percent of those jailed. With a new and deeply repressive Cybersecurity Law having taken effect on 1 January 2019, the use of invasive surveillance methods to target perceived critics is likely to intensify. Detention conditions remain appalling.
