Vietnam dissidents cock a snook
Take up soccer to circumvent govt efforts to block their meetings
Hanoi, July 26: A group of old pals trot onto the pitch for what looks like an ordinary football match in Vietnam. But it is actually a sly act of subversion in the authoritarian state, where this team of political dissidents has turned to football to circumvent government efforts to block their meetings.
The game lasts just 45 minutes before security guards storm the field and kick the players off the pitch — a regular disruption for a team constantly dodging the watchful eye of the communist regime.
“We have played the socalled mouse-and-cat game with the police and security forces since we established our football team,” founding member and activist Nguyen Chi Tuyen said.
The No-U FC squad was formed in 2011 by Tuyen and some 40 others who had rallied against China in a series of protests over disputed waters in the South China Sea, where the two communist countries have overlapping territorial claims. Police broke up the protests, sometimes violently, and Tuyen said they continued to harass the group when they met at cafes in Hanoi to discuss politics — a sensitive topic in the one-party state. “We tried to find out a way to legally and publicly meet each other to discuss everything,” said Tuyen, 43, who is commonly known by his online handle Anh Chi.
The football team was formed soon after, named after the U-shaped boundary that Beijing says demarcates its territory in the South China Sea — and which Vietnam rejects.