Important
Possessing a telephone capable of making international calls has itself been grounds for arrest in the Central Highlands. Before you decide how to send us something, decide whether to send it at all. No report to us is worth your liberty, and we would rather have nothing from you than have you taken for it. Nothing on this page can make contact safe. It can only make some choices less dangerous than others.
Risks
- Your handset. Not what is on it — the device itself. People have been arrested for owning one that can call abroad.
- Who is in your house. Police have been billeted in the homes of villagers suspected of political activity.
- Movement and meetings. Travel inside the highlands has been restricted, meetings of more than two people banned, and checkpoints placed on main roads.
- The village meeting. Public self-criticism sessions are convened to make people name others as well as renounce their own faith.
- Association. Since the designation of Montagnards Stand for Justice as a terrorist organisation, having communicated with such a group is itself treated as an offence.
- Crossing a border. Cambodia has deported Dega back to Vietnam. Thailand extradited a UNHCR-recognised refugee in November 2025. Leaving is not the end of the risk.
What to do
- Decide what the report is for
If nobody outside can act on it, sending it buys risk and nothing else. A name, a date, a place and what happened is worth sending. A rumour is not.
- Prefer someone who is already leaving
Information carried out by a person travelling for another reason leaves no record on a network. This is slower and it is usually safer.
- Do not use one device for both lives
If you must use a phone, a device that is not the one you carry every day, is not registered to you, and is not kept in your house is a different level of risk from your own handset.
- Write it down as facts, not opinions
Who, when, where, what was done, who else saw it. Our article on documenting an incident sets this out. Facts survive being checked; conclusions do not need to be yours.
- Tell one person outside that you sent it
Someone who will notice if you stop answering, and who knows how to reach us. Being missed quickly is a real protection.
- Do not name people who have not consented
Including them in a report can expose them. If a name is essential to the account, say so and we will handle it as restricted.
What we will do with what you send
We do not publish a name, a village or an identifying detail without the consent of the person it belongs to. If you ask us to hold something without publishing, we hold it. If we cannot verify something, we do not publish it as fact — we say what we have and what we lack. And if we are ever compelled to hand over records, we will say publicly that we have been.