Hanoi dwellers mobilise over city’s cherished trees
Vietnam’s Communist leaders are as intolerant as ever of public challenge as they prepare to mark next month’s 40th anniversary of one-party rule over the unified state. But authorities in Hanoi have been forced on to the defensive this week by protests on an unlikely subject: the fate of the picturesque capital’s famed greenery.
The city’s officials have suspended and promised to review a plan to chop down 6,700 trees lining its boulevards, after the first felling triggered a viral social media campaign and a lakeside demonstration billed as a “picnic”.
David McKelvey (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)