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Getty ImagesUntil recently, there would have been little to distinguish Vietnam’s so-called Justice Tree from the hundreds of others lining the streets of Hanoi. Then the bouquets started piling up.
It was here that former politician Nguyen Sy Cuong was driving his BMW in May last year when he veered into the opposite lane and smashed into a motorbike carrying a father and his teenage daughter.
The father, Do Viet Hung, suffered a broken leg but survived. The daughter, 18-year-old Do Ngoc Phuong Thuy, died in hospital 10 days after the collision which severed her right leg.
Fifteen months later, her death, and what many view as a suspicious silence surrounding it, has become a lightning rod for discontent among Vietnam’s youth.
In early August, a legion of anonymous social media users started publishing millions of posts with the hashtags #NguyenSyCuong and #BMW across Facebook, Instagram, Threads and X. The users identified themselves as Gen Z – and they demanded accountability.
Initial discussions circled around whether the former politician was in fact the one who had caused the accident, and why authorities had only released sparse information.
Some pointed to reports that the driver of the BMW had the initials NSC and was born in 1961, leading to speculation that he was a former member of parliament. Others claimed the incident had been swept under the rug due to the influence of powerful figures. Many reported that their posts had been deleted by social media platforms at the request of the Vietnamese government – providing screenshots of notifications as evidence.
Expressions of outrage and calls for a proper investigation grew in number, volume and force.
Meanwhile, masked flower bearers started to appear, gravitating towards the scene of the incident and laying vibrant bouquets at the base of what has now been dubbed the Justice Tree. Police quickly arrived to get rid of the flowers, prompting mourners to create a virtual equivalent of the tree online – where hundreds of thousands of people have since sent tributes and paid respects.
Pressurised by more than a year’s worth of growing suspicion and a rush of online attention, the issue had become too big to ignore.
Then, last Monday, the government made an extraordinary admission.
State broadcaster Vietnam Television (VTV) televised an official statement from authorities, confirming what had happened on the day of the incident. Former National Assembly deputy Nguyen Sy Cuong was indeed driving his car down Nguyen Huy Tu Street on 30 May, 2025, when his vehicle suddenly swerved across the road and into an oncoming motorcycle.
Supplied: Government of VietnamVTV cited police and prosecution sources who said that because Nguyen Sy Cuong “sincerely confessed and actively and fully remedied the consequences of his actions”, Do Ngoc Phuong Thuy’s family had submitted a petition to exempt him from prosecution. The report did not specify what form this remedy took, but Nguyen Sy Cuong was cleared of all criminal liability.
While such a decision is lawful under Vietnam’s legislation, lawyers have questioned whether the criminal proceedings were conducted in accordance with due process – or conducted at all. Social media users have pointed out that Nguyen Sy Cuong is married to a minister in the current government, suggesting the pair may have wielded their influence to cover up the story. Some users have also cited other examples, including several fatal traffic incidents, when the law appears to have been applied differently.
Such online pressure had yielded results in the past.
In March this year, a 66-year-old man driving under the influence of alcohol in Hanoi collided with seven other cars and three motorcycles in a chain-reaction crash that killed one woman and seriously injured two others.
In the wake of that incident, it emerged that the driver, Nguyen Van Sau, was a retired police colonel who had previously served as deputy director of a department under the Ministry of Public Security. Fearing that authorities were actively erasing culpability, the victim’s family appealed for help. Social media users in turn amplified the issue, and after three months Nguyen Van Sau was charged with “violating regulations on participation in road traffic”.
Many now feel that a similar groundswell may be the only way to deliver justice for the teenager who died last year. But their efforts have been met with friction.
Do Viet Hung, the teenager’s father, appeared in VTV’s broadcast to thank internet users for their sympathy, but said the family was satisfied with the investigation’s findings, and asked people to leave them alone. Notably, he also warned people “not to be drawn into the influence of reactionary elements”.
Also appearing in the broadcast was a senior police official, who similarly suggested that people were leveraging the incident to stoke dissent.
The Ministry of Public Security had “uncovered highly dangerous plots and intentions by hostile forces, reactionaries and bad actors to incite unrest and cause disorder”, the official said.
“The ministry advises the public, especially young people, to remain fully alert and highly vigilant.”
Similar rebukes have also started emerging on social media, with some claiming that conspiratorial forces were manipulating young people in Vietnam to stoke political discontent, manipulate public opinion online and rally people in real life ahead of the country’s national holiday on 2 September.
MEMORIAL TREE No. 55 Community PageOthers have accused Gen Z Vietnamese of plotting a “colour revolution” – a term used to refer to mostly nonviolent protest movements that use specific colours or flowers as their symbol.
This is a familiar line of critique from Vietnamese authorities, who have previously labelled people’s grievances or resentments as being untrue, unreasonable, or stemming from information fabricated by some “anti-government” or “reactionary” organisation.
Many in this case have said such accusations are baseless, insisting they are simply seeking justice for the victim of a fatal traffic accident. But the growing outrage has inevitably become a flashpoint amid broader, simmering grievances felt by Vietnam’s youth.
Despite the Vietnamese government’s tightening control over people’s online freedom of expression – through measures ranging from intimidation and fines to criminal prosecution – public opinion in some corners has started to swerve against the Communist Party line.
On platforms such as Threads and Reddit, where anonymity is more normalised, many young people have expressed discontent towards various social issues: from the expansion of police power and land reclamation projects to exam cheating scandals and stricter regulation of online communication.
Such grievances echo those condemned by other Gen Z-led movements across the broader Asia region.
In countries like Bangladesh, India and Nepal, youth-led anti-government uprisings have over the past 12 months rallied immense support against the various pressure points of corruption, nepotism, economic inequality and democratic backsliding. Unofficially dubbed “the Asian Spring”, the expanding influence of these movements has spread from Iran, Mongolia and the Maldives to the Philippines and Timor-Leste.
But protests in Vietnam have rarely, if ever, reached such fierce extremes. Vietnamese authorities have historically proven effective at detecting and stifling dissent before it boils over into action. Virtual places of mourning, anonymous social media posts, and online protests seem to be the most strident action many civilians here can afford to take.
Many are simply seeking justice for a teenager who was killed in a tragic accident, and accountability for a former lawmaker who appears to have been granted special clemency.
Yet even the mere suggestion that this incident could foment an uprising has provoked alarm – along with harsh reminders of the longstanding status quo in Vietnam’s one-party state.
“Are these Gen Z kids planning a colour revolution using this accident?” reads one widely shared post. “Are they trying to emulate Bangladesh, India, and Nepal, and then create an Asian Spring? Remember, this is Vietnam! This is not Nepal, India, or Bangladesh!”
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