HANOI: Vietnam’s new cybersecurity law is designed to protect online rights and create a “safe and healthy cyberspace,” the foreign ministry said on Thursday, although critics have warned it gives the Communist-ruled state more power to crack down on dissent.
Seventeen US lawmakers wrote to the chief executives of Facebook and Google on Wednesday, urging them to resist changes wrought by the new law that require foreign tech firms to store locally personal data on users in Vietnam and open offices there.
“As in any other country, the activities of foreign businesses and investors should comply with the laws of the host country,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang told Reuters in a comment on Wednesday’s letter.
“The ratification of the cybersecurity law is aimed at creating a safe and healthy cyberspace,” Hang said in a written statement in response to a request for comment.
That would protect the legitimate rights and interests of organizations and individuals online, and ensure national security as well as social order and safety, she added.
Despite sweeping economic reforms and growing openness to social change, Vietnam’s Communist Party tolerates little dissent.
Global technology firms have pushed back against the requirement to store user data locally, but have not taken the same tough stance on the parts of the law that bolster the government’s crackdown on online political activism.
In particular, the new law gives more direct control over online censorship to the Ministry of Public Security, which is tasked with crushing dissent.
Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hang did not directly address those accusations, as outlined in Wednesday’s letter from US lawmakers, but said freedom of speech was a right enshrined in Vietnamese law.
“The state of Vietnam always respects and facilitates the rights of its citizens to exercise freedom and democracy but is resolutely against the abuse of those rights to commit illegal activities,” Hang added.
Approved by Vietnamese legislators last month, the law takes effect on January 1 next year.
Vietnam says controversial cybersecurity law aims to protect online rights
Vietnam says controversial cybersecurity law aims to protect online rights
Trending: BBC report suggests sexual abuse and torture in UAE-run Yemeni prisons
- The investigation was produced by British-Yemeni BBC journalist Nawal Al-Maghafi
LONDON: A recent BBC video report diving into what it says was UAE-run prison in Yemen has drawn widespread attention online and raised fresh questions about the role of the emirates in the war-torn country.
The report, published earlier this month and recently subtitled in Arabic and shared on social media, alleged that the prison — located inside a former UAE military base — was used to detain and torture detainees during interrogations, including using sexual abuse as a method.
The investigation was produced by British-Yemeni BBC journalist Nawal Al-Maghafi, who toured the site, looking into cells and what appear to be interrogation rooms.
Al-Maghafi said the Yemeni government invited the BBC team to document the facilities for the first time.
A former detainee, speaking anonymously, described severe abuse by UAE soldiers: “When we were interrogated, it was the worst. They even sexually abused us and say they will bring in the doctor. The ‘so-called’ doctor was an Emirati soldier. He beat us and ordered the soldiers to beat us too. I tried to kill myself multiple times to make it end.”
Yemeni information minister, Moammar al Eryani also appears in the report, clarifying that his government was unable to verify what occurred within sites that were under Emirati control.
“We weren’t able to access locations that were under UAE control until now,” he said, adding that “When we liberated it (Southern Yemen), we discovered these prisons, even though we were told by many victims that these prisons exist, but we didn't believe it was true.”
زارت بي بي سي مواقع داخل قواعد سابقة لدولة الإمارات العربية المتحدة في اليمن، حيث يقول محتجزون إنهم تعرضوا لسوء المعاملة. pic.twitter.com/BfS5GRxULp
— BBC News عربي (@BBCArabic) January 23, 2026
The BBC says it approached the UAE government for comment, however Abu Dhabi did not respond to its inquiries.
Allegations of secret detention sites in southern Yemen are not new. The BBC report echoes earlier reporting by the Associated Press (AP), which cited hundreds of men detained during counterterrorism operations that disappeared into a network of secret prisons where abuse was routine and torture severe.
In a 2017 investigation, the AP documented at least 18 alleged clandestine detention sites — inside military bases, ports, an airport, private villas and even a nightclub — either run by the UAE or Yemeni forces trained and backed by Abu Dhabi.
The report cited accounts from former detainees, relatives, civil rights lawyers and Yemeni military officials.
Following the investigation, Yemen’s then-interior minister called on the UAE to shut down the facilities or hand them over, and said that detainees were freed in the weeks following the allegations.
The renewed attention comes amid online speculation about strains between Saudi Arabia and the UAE over Yemen.
