A Vietnamese state-run TV station said a program mistakenly showed footage of a restaurant owner in America getting a tattoo of the yellow-and-red flag of South Vietnam -- a taboo image in the communist country.
The flag represents South Vietnam, also known as the Republic of Vietnam, which existed from 1955 until it lost the Vietnam War to the North in 1975.
In Vietnam today, the flag is seen as expressing hostility toward the communist government.
The footage in question came from a 2022 Netflix show, “Street Food: USA,” that was repacked in 2023 for a different program on Hue Radio and Television. That show was broadcast again recently.
In the Netflix program, restaurant owner Thuy Pham introduces herself as a Vietnamese boat person who left the country with her mother when she was a toddler. She said her family first went to a refugee camp in Indonesia and settled in Oregon about a year later.
Vietnamese who fled the South prior to the fall of Saigon – which was renamed Ho Chi Minh City for the revolutionary leader – and resettled in other countries continue to use the South’s flag, including in ethnic Vietnamese communities in the United States.
‘A serious mistake’
A screenshot image of Thuy Pham’s tattoo was posted to a private Vietnamese Facebook group on Sunday.
On Monday, a Radio Free Asia reporter sent the image to Hue Radio and Television’s fanpage to ask for comment.
The station said it had discovered the “sensitive image” during the censorship process in 2023 and had edited it out of its program.
But due to negligence in how programs are stored for rebroadcast, the station mistakenly showed an old version of the program earlier this year, the station said in a statement on Tuesday that included an apology to followers.
“We consider this a serious mistake and will strictly handle and conduct a review of the editors and related departments,” it said.
The station added that it “hoped to receive support from everyone in stopping the dissemination of the images and limiting bad actors from taking advantage of them for bad purposes.”
Vietnam doesn’t have any specific legal provisions prohibiting the display of the flag or symbols associated with the Republic of Vietnam, said U.S.-based lawyer Dang Dinh Manh, who practiced law in Vietnam for many years.
But in reality, the government still applies criminal punishment to people who hang the flag or display symbols of the Republic of Vietnam, he said. One of the crimes they are often accused of is “propaganda against the state.”
Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.