Born into a family with a passion for the arts, 68-year-old Thanh spent her younger years enjoying stage dramas at Hanoi’s theaters in the 1980s. Such entertainment was a luxury in post-war Vietnam – theater tickets were scarce, accessible only to families with wealth or political connections. Thanh was among the fortunate few.

Today, however, she views the imminent $520 million Pearl Theater with bitterness. The megaproject – covering a total floor area of 40,980 square meters and potentially accommodating 2,000 people – is slated for completion by 2030. But the giant theater’s construction displaced her whole neighborhood. 

“I lost my home,” Thanh said in her trembling voice. 

She spent the past weeks inviting friends and family to her two-story house, a 230-square-meter property near West Lake that she completed in 2020, for what may be their last visit. The house, valued at over 300 billion Vietnamese dong (around $11.5 million) in the current market, was demolished at the end of August.

The compensation she received was 3 billion dong – just 1 percent of her home’s estimated valued – plus a monthly allowance that is barely enough for a modest rent. The financial toll extends beyond the compensation gap. Thanh and her neighbors have spent considerable time and money petitioning local authorities, along with paying unofficial fees to expedite bureaucratic processes – efforts that yielded no concessions. 

Authorities have designated resettlement areas for Thanh and her neighbors but they remain far from ready to move. Thanh has scrambled for months to secure alternative housing for her family of seven, unsure when she will officially move to the resettlement residential areas. 

Nonetheless, Thanh refuses to join any protest with some of her neighbors nor air her discontent online, though she is an active user of Facebook and Zalo, a local messaging application.  

“Nowadays, between a victim and a criminal lies only a fragile line,” said Thanh. “We have to be careful.”

Thanh is not alone in facing the dilemma brought about by the capital’s 100-year multibillion dollar master plan, which is poised to displace 860,000 people or more than 10 percent of the capital’s population. The haste to demolish hits the communities hard. 

Thanh said she and her neighbors were never consulted during planning and were coerced to leave their homes without access to resettlement areas – and, most importantly, received inadequate compensation. To make matters worse, authorities are forcibly accelerating displacement even as resettlement infrastructure remains unfinished. 

Yet, this practice is bound to gain legal sanction in the upcoming amended Land Law. On July 28, the National Assembly’s Standing Committee announced that an extraordinary session would be held in August to deliberate on several draft laws. Among those high on the agenda is the amended Land Law, which is scheduled for approval in October.

Since To Lam became chief of the Communist Party of Vietnam in 2025 – and, in 2026, president – the slogan of the “era of national rise” has become a mantra across Vietnam. Much of this agenda revolves around a money-driven model of development: policymakers pursue double-digit GDP growth and the ambition of transforming Vietnam into a high-income country by 2045. Land, in particular, has been seen as a launching pad for national growth. Large-scale real estate developments continue to proliferate across the country. 

Amid the rush to develop, one of the government’s most aggressively pursued – yet quietly contested – initiatives in recent months has been land confiscation. 

Land Rights at the Mercy of the Party-State

The draft legislation, prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, was released for public consultation on July 21, leaving citizens less than a month to submit feedback – assuming they were even aware that the consultation was taking place. Notably, on the online portal to provide input, there is no option to do so anonymously.  

The Land Law was passed two years ago, so it’s surprising that it already needs amendments – despite the fact that in 2024 and 2025, two resolutions were issued to guide its implementation. But in today’s Vietnam, laws are being issued with unprecedented speed and scale. 2025 was a record legislative year, with 86 laws passed – more than half of the 150 total laws approved by the National Assembly from 2021 to 2026 – as well as 371 legal documents of varying types. 

China and Vietnam share a socialist land-tenure system that does not recognize private land ownership. But their legal ownership structures differ. In China, urban land is state-owned, while most rural land is owned by peasant collectives. In Vietnam, all land is legally owned by the entire people, with the state acting as the representative and granting land-use rights to individuals, households, and organizations – and reclaiming those rights when it sees fit.

Hanoi is currently carrying out land acquisition and site clearance for 1,428 projects across the city. According to a master plan approved in March 2026, Hanoi has set a goal becoming one of the 10 happiest capitals in the world, a city of “prosperity, harmony, civility, and character.” Yet, experts inside the country has expressed concerns about the speed of the transformation.

Tô Kiên, an architect and professor at the University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, wrote in an opinion piece on Vnexxpress: 

The Hanoi master plan was meticulously prepared, comprising more than 1,000 pages of explanatory documents and dozens of large-scale maps. Yet the public was given only 10 days to become aware of it, read and understand it, and provide feedback. Expert consultation workshops had only just taken place, and within days, the plan was approved. This shows that the consultation process has not fulfilled its intended role and should have been conducted more thoroughly and cautiously, with more time allowed for review and feedback.

The 12th and 13th provisions of the current Land Law allow the state to expropriate land to build headquarters for the Communist Party of Vietnam, state agencies, the Vietnam Fatherland Front, political and socio-political organizations, and other organizations established in accordance with the law and assigned state functions. They also allow land to be expropriated to build offices or representative offices for public service units affiliated with CPV agencies, state agencies, and socio-political organizations.

The final provision goes further. It states that if land must be expropriated for a project or facility deemed to serve the national or public interest but does not fall under any of the 33 categories listed in the article, the National Assembly may amend or supplement the list through a simplified legislative procedure. In practice, this could leave the door open for the state to add new grounds for land expropriation through an expedited process. 

It also raises questions about how much say affected communities will have over whether – and under what circumstances – their land can be taken. The provisions appear to prioritize the interests of state and party institutions over those of land users when it comes to determining which projects qualify for compulsory land acquisition.

Since mid-2025, large-scale land acquisition and forced eviction in the name of “development and investment” has been and is being carried out nationwide, pushing hundreds of thousands of households into situations where they lose their homes and land. The Red River Scenic Avenue Corridor Project runs through 16 communes and wards, with a total land area of about 11,418 hectares, potentially affecting approximately 200,000 residents. The Gia Bình International Airport Project in Bắc Ninh province will require nearly 1,960 hectares of land, affecting about 7,100 households and 118 organizations. The Long Thành Airport Project in Đồng Nai province will need about 5,000 hectares, affecting 4,600 households.

No Room for Pushback

Like China, peaceful peasant protests over land expropriation in Vietnam first began to take shape in the early 2000s, and became widespread and more significant in the mid-2000s. In Vietnam today, approximately 70 percent of long-term citizen complaints, denunciations, and lawsuits derive from state land acquisition, site clearance, compensation, and management.

While Article 158 of the Land Law states that land pricing must follow market principles and be honest, objective, and transparent, in practice the terms are effectively imposed by local authorities rather than subject to negotiation.

In the eyes of the state, protesting the terms of land expropriation is criminal activity. Domestic media outlets warn citizens that stories shedding light on victims’ struggles are being used by “hostile and reactionary forces” to spread false information, incite opposition, sow divisions between the public and the authorities, and portray the implementation of the project as “driving people away, suppressing them, and abandoning them.” The newly elected National Assembly is silent on the struggles of forced evictees. Speaking out on behalf of them was already rare in the past, but it did happen previously

Lưu Bình Nhưỡng, a senior CPV member, and former member of Vietnam’s 14th National Assembly (2016–2021), was among the most vocal legislators on the issue of land confiscation. From 2021 to 2023, he was the deputy head of the Commission for Members’ Opinions and Petitions under the Standing Committee of the National Assembly.

In 2021, a worker in Ninh Thuận Province filed a complaint about the authorities handing land over to a company without compensation – only for him to be beaten by an unidentified group for daring to defend his legitimate rights. Lưu reportedly weighed in on the case:

Companies do not have the authority to use force to ‘intimidate’ the people. We need to learn from the bloodshed in Đắk Nông, where land confiscation by a company drove people to fire shots. The person who fired is wrong, but the company’s ‘taking land from the people’ has no legal basis. Therefore, if the authorities stand aside and take no action, they are effectively covering up for the company. That is unfair.

Yet there are fewer and fewer voices like this. 

In 2025, Lưu was sentenced to 13 years in prison, three years for the charge of “extorting property” and 10 years for “abusing positions and power to influence others for personal gain.” Many people believed the charges were fabricated or “trumped up” because of his outspoken statements critical of the police, and because he was also seen as supporting inmates who were tried unjustly.

At the National Conference on the Implementation of Resolutions from the 3rd Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, 14th Term, To Lam weighed in on the question of national developments vs people’s rights. The party chief urged strict enforcement of discipline; stronger inspection, supervision, information dissemination, and publicity; and proper evaluations based on data, products, and actual results. He emphasized taking the interests and satisfaction of the people as the ultimate measure.

“Social consensus must first and foremost be built through correct policies, fair and transparent implementation, and results that people can perceive,” Lâm said. “Do not trade off long-term interests for short-term achievements; do not allow disadvantaged people to bear unreasonable costs.”

At the same time, the party chief also urged civil servants to recognize that “willingly stepping back for development is also a brave and noble action – something to be proud of and deserving of recognition.” Tellingly, no official so far has “stepped back” for the sake of project development.

Hanoi is moving with speed. Speed coerces quick obedience, leaving little room for opposition. It matters to local authorities because acting quickly allows them to take credit for their performance and improve their chances of promotion. 

Coercive land clearance is not new in Vietnam, but it has intensified alongside the government’s accelerated development agenda and the growing concentration of power within the Vietnamese security apparatus. Unlike previous land seizures, local police participated from start to finish. With access to a national population database, they met with residents, assessed their property to determine compensation levels, and monitored their relocation.

It’s not only those who lose their land who are at risk of coercion. In a country with no independent lawyers association, lawyers take on great risks when defending victims of land seizures. Some have felt compelled to leave the country. For instance, Võ An Đôn – who earned the nickname “Lawyer of the People” for defending vulnerable groups mostly on a pro bono basis – had his license revoked in 2018 and endured years of harassment before seeking refuge overseas in 2023. 

Careful Defiance

As the police move to impose prison sentences on those who post information they deem incorrect online, land disputes and injustices will continue to define the era of “national rise” that Lam has hailed. Different groups of affected Hanoi residents protested while trying to stay on the right side of the government’s red lines. They organized purposefully small gatherings and displayed banners. They called themselves protesters but still patriots, implying that they would only demand legitimate rights without challenging the legitimacy of the Communist Party. 

By degrees, however, resistance has largely given way to compliance. Authorities periodically cut water and electricity to the fields and homes of those who failed to relocate on time. 

With the courts, authorities, and domestic media unwilling to lend them an ear, social media has become their outlet for the time being. A Facebook group titled “Red River Megaproject” was established and now has nearly 30,000 members. Members self-censor sensitive words – such as “land grabs,” “complete clearance,” and “communism” –  to avoid the group being shut down for violations of community standards, a routine occurrence for content posted by dissidents. 

An anonymous website titled “Red River Community” was built to help affected residents navigate legal procedures related to land petitions. Also on Facebook, Tai Vách Mạch Dừng (“walls have ears”), which now has 104,000 followers, provides a platform for a number of victims of injustices, particularly victims of land seizures, including one of the co-founders. 

Short of access to media and legal counsel, many of the victims have filmed themselves to testify to their own injustices so that their stories would not fade into oblivion. 

If farmers in the past were the backbone of support for the CPV, victims of land grabs today could join the democracy movement. “Many victims of land rights injustices have transformed themselves from unjustly treated citizens seeking simply personal redress into something far larger,” remarked Thi Thanh Nguyen Pochan, an associate professor at the Catholic University of the West (UCO) in France. “They have joined forces with dissidents at home and abroad – groups the government has deemed hostile or reactionary forces.”

The most well known such activists are the family of Cấn Thị Thêu. Along with her husband, Thêu led a group of farmers fighting against coercive land seizures and undercompensation. She was arrested in April 2014 while documenting a land seizure in Dương Nội Ward, which has now become home to high-end residential areas. and was later sentenced to 15 months’ imprisonment for resisting public officials. After her release, she continued participating in peaceful protests against land grabs.

In June 2016, she was arrested again following demonstrations advocating for her own land rights and sentenced to 20 months’ imprisonment for causing public disorder. The U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention later found her detention to be arbitrary.

Thêu’s family set themselves apart through active use of social media, regular engagement with foreign organizations and media outlets, and especially through a command of activist discourse that links the isolated cause of expropriated peasants to the broader struggle for regime change.

In June 2020, due to her solidarity with victims of land disputes in Đồng Tâm, Thêu was detained again without a warrant. Shortly after, she was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment, followed by three years’ probation, for “making, storing, spreading information, materials, [and] items for the purpose of opposing the State.” Her two sons, Trịnh Bá Tư and Trịnh Bá Phương, were also imprisoned on the same charge.

In September 2025, Phương became the first inmate to be handed an additional 11-year prison sentence for the same charge, on the grounds that he had allegedly written a note reading “down with communism” while in prison. 

Thêu is currently detained at a prison in Thanh Hóa province, a four hour train ride from her hometown. She reportedly faces degrading conditions affecting her health and dignity, including being denied healthcare several times or receiving only cursory care. Authorities have reportedly refused to provide her or her family with a copy of the medical diagnosis. Inside the prison, her favorite activity is to read books.

Her letter last April urged her children behind bars to do the same and never to lose hope:

Outside, the eastern sky is showing faint light, signaling the changes that lie ahead. And the day of reunion, the day of victory, the day of freedom for our family and everyone will surely not be far off anymore – Keep your spirits up, my children. Please take care of yourselves and stay healthy. Remember what I am telling you so that I can have peace of mind, my dear. I end this letter here. I pray that peace and safety will come to you, my sons.

Outside the prison, many of her fellow farmers from Dương Nội are still seeking justice for their land lost more than a decade ago, with no end in sight. And the number of Vietnamese in a similar plight is only continuing to grow.