Mother Mushroom arrested In a separate move, Hanoi appeared to underscore the government's intention to throttle dissent as it arrested a popular blogger Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, who writes under the pen name Mother Mushroom on Tuesday. Quynh co-founded the Network of Vietnamese Bloggers, one of the few independent writers' associations in a country where the news media and publishing industry are tightly controlled by the governing Communist Party. The network defended Quynh, writing in a statement that she is an "activist who has advocated for human rights, improved living conditions for people, and sovereignty for many years." She blogged extensively about the Formosa Plastics Group steel plant chemical spill in April that killed tons of marine life and left fishermen and tourism industry workers jobless in four provinces. In June, the company acknowledged it was responsible for the pollution that killed an estimated 115 tons of fish and pledged to pay $500 million to clean it up and compensate those affected by it. The spill sparked large protests across Vietnam, where public demonstrations are rarely tolerated. Hanoi's move looks to be aimed directly at criticism over the environmental disaster, the Network of Vietnamese Bloggers wrote in their statement. "Blogger Mother Mushroom has recently been focused on environmental protection,[criticizing] Formosa and other projects that have bad effects on the environment," the network wrote. "These activities have led to her urgent arrest." Freelance journalist Huynh Ngoc Chenh told RFA's Vietnamese Service that the "Formosa situation has become more tense and people think that is the "death point' of the regime." "There will be more protests in the future, and it will be more tense, and more people will join the protests," he said. "That is why the government is looking for a way to clamp down on social activists." Freelance journalist Pham Chi Dung told RFA "this is a clamp-down campaign initiated with the recent announcement by the Ministry of Police about Viet Tan party. The crackdown will be harsher in the future." While Quynh's arrest looks like a stern signal, blogger Pham Thanh Nghien, a co-founder of the network of Vietnamese Bloggers, told RFA that the activists were unbowed. "This does not damage us in terms of worrying about being arrested or jailed," she said. "We are fighting for basic freedoms for ourselves, even though those freedoms might be paid for by our imprisonment." While activists are prepared to go to jail, the recent activity may only be aimed partially at them, said blogger Truong Duy Nhat. "It is possible that anybody can be arrested in the future," he said. "The way they behave, making laws and implementing those laws, means that any citizen can be alternate prisoners. Anybody can become Mother Mushroom."