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Tag: Human Rights

  • Pham Doan Trang in Voice of America: Rights Groups Deplore Arrest of Vietnam Writer and Activist Pham Doan Trang

    Several human rights groups voiced their dismay over the arrest of Luat Khoa and The Vietnamese co-founder, Pham Doan Trang just hours after annual U.S.-Vietnam human rights talks.  Human Rights Watch calls the arrest a “scorched earth response” to political dissent in the country.

    Excerpt:

    Outspoken Vietnamese democracy activist and author Pham Doan Trang has been arrested on anti-state propaganda charges, police and state media said Wednesday, as rights groups condemned her apprehension just hours after annual U.S.-Vietnam human rights talks and warned that the blogger faced the risk of torture in custody.

    Pham Doan Trang was arrested at an apartment in Ho Chi Minh City on Tuesday night and charged under article 117 of the Vietnamese Penal Code, accused of “making, storing, distributing or disseminating information, documents and items against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” To An Xo, a spokesperson of the Ministry of Public Security, said. Trang, described by state media as a blogger who used to work for various publications in Vietnam, was transferred to Hanoi.

    If convicted, she could face up to 20 years in prison, Amnesty International said, warning that she faced serious danger in official custody.

    “Pham Dan Trang faces an imminent risk of torture and other-ill treatment at the hands of the Vietnamese authorities. She must be immediately and unconditionally released,” said Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for Campaigns, Ming Yu Hah, in a statement.

    “The arrest of Pham Doan Trang is reprehensible. She is a leading figure in the struggle for human rights in Viet Nam. She has inspired countless young activists to speak up for a more just, inclusive, and free Vietnam,” said Hah.

    ‘Scorched earth response’

    Human Rights Watch noted that her arrest occurred “just a few hours after the annual human rights dialogue between the United States and Vietnam” and that she was immediately charged.

    “Vietnam’s scorched earth response to political dissent is on display for all to see with the arrest of prominent blogger and author Pham Doan Trang,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch.

    “Every day she spends behind bars is a grave injustice that violates Vietnam’s international human rights commitments and brings dishonor to the government,” he said in a statement.

    “Governments around the world and the UN must prioritize her case, speak out loudly and consistently on her behalf, and demand her immediate and unconditional release,” added Robertson.

    Rachael Chen, spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, said the mission was concerned about the reported arrest and “monitoring the situation closely.”

    “We urge the Vietnamese government to ensure its actions and laws are consistent with Vietnam’s international obligations and commitments,” she said in an e-mailed comment.

    “Authors, bloggers, and journalists often do their work at great risk, and it is the duty of governments and citizens worldwide to speak out for their protection,” said Chen.

    Spate of arrests

    Following Trang’s arrest, her friends posted a message they said was written by her in advance, that read: “Nobody wants to go to jail, but if prison is the place for those who fight for freedom, and if it is the place to carry out set goals, then we should go to prison.”

    Human Rights Watch noted that last month Trang had published the third edition of a report of a violent clash at Dong Tam commune outside Hanoi in January. The publication of the first edition of that report one week after the incident led to the arrest in June three out of five authors of the report, Can Thi Theu and her sons Trinh Ba Phuong and Trinh Ba Tu. They were also charged with for anti-state propaganda.

    Amid a spate of arrests and abuse of independent journalists this year in Vietnam, Trang told RFA in May that toleration of dissent was deteriorating and likely to get worse in the run-up to the ruling Communist Party congress in January.

    “Freedom has always been restricted, but nowadays it seems to be narrower, and there’s more and more violence,” she said at the time. “From now until the party congress, the scope of freedom can be tightened more and more, and the suppression will increase.”

    Trang, who released a well-regarded book titled Politics for Everyone, was awarded the Reporters Without Borders 2019 Press Freedom Prize. She founded the online legal magazine Luat Khoa and edits another web-based rights journal called thevietnamese.

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  • Pham Doan Trang in The Washington Post: A dissident jailed in Vietnam shares her message: Don’t free me, free my country

    Foreshadowing a possible arrest by the Vietnam authorities, journalist and human rights defender Pham Doan Trang wrote a letter accepting her fate and the risk of being incarcerated.  

    In the letter, the strong willed and courageous freedom fighter clearly expressed what everyone’s priority should be and that is fighting for a democratic, free Vietnam.

    Excerpt:

    “JUST IN CASE I AM IMPRISONED,” Pham Doan Trang wrote across the top of a letter she gave to a fellow dissident for safekeeping last year. Vietnam’s most prominent democracy activist anticipated her arrest, which came Tuesday, when she was accused of “making, storing, distributing or disseminating information, documents and items against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.” Her letter was made public, and it contained a remarkable appeal.

    “No one wants to sit in prison,” she said. “But if prison is inevitable for freedom fighters, if prison can serve a pre-determined purpose, then we should happily accept it.”

    “I don’t want freedom for just myself; that’s too easy,” she wrote. “I want something greater: freedom for Vietnam.”

    She urged people not to campaign for her release, but instead to seek democratic reforms, including free and fair elections for the National Assembly, and to focus on her writings and books about political rights, with titles such as “Politics for the Common People,” “Politics of a Police State,” “Citizen Journalism,” “A Handbook for Families of Prisoners” and others. If interrogated by the authorities, she vowed that she “will not admit guilt, confess, or beg for leniency,” but “will always assert that I want to abolish dictatorship in Vietnam.”

    She also wrote: “Please take care of my mother.”

    Ms. Trang’s arrest is the latest and one of the most flagrant in Vietnam’s long practice of squelching freedom of expression and political dissent, including arrests of bloggers and independent journalists. The repression appears to be intensifying ahead of a Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam, held every five years, expected in January. Ms. Trang is being held incommunicado, a common practice in such cases. Article 117 of the Vietnamese penal code, under which Ms. Trang and others have been charged, carries a potential 20-year prison term. She told Radio Free Asia in May, “Freedom has always been restricted, but nowadays it seems to be narrower, and there’s more and more violence. From now until the party congress, the scope of freedom can be tightened more and more, and the suppression will increase.”

    In her letter, Ms. Trang recalled Vietnam’s practice of jailing dissidents, then releasing them under conditions of immediate expulsion, as with Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, the blogger known as Mother Mushroom, who was released from a Vietnamese jail and expelled to the United States in 2018. Ms. Trang rejected that fate. “Focus less on freeing me,” she wrote, and more on advancing her cause, including “free and fair elections.” These are the words of a selfless and courageous champion of democracy.

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    Opinion A dissident jailed in Vietnam shares her message Dont free me free my country The Washington Post
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  • Pham Doan Trang in CPJ: Journalist Pham Doan Trang arrested on anti-state charges in Vietnam

    The Committee to Protect Journalists called on the Vietnamese authorities to immediately and unconditionally release journalist Pham Doan Trang and drop anti-state charges against her.

    Excerpt:

    Trang, a prominent journalist who contributes regularly to several independent news sites, was arrested just before midnight yesterday in Ho Chi Minh City, according to news reports.

    She was charged with “propaganda against the State” under Article 117 of the penal code, according to a statement posted on the Ministry of Public Security’s website today. Convictions under Article 117 carry maximum jail terms of 20 years. Vietnam has detained and threatened several journalists under the charge in recent months, as CPJ has documented.

    “Authorities should immediately release journalist Pham Doan Trang, drop the charges against her, and cease their decade-long campaign of harassing her,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “Vietnam must stop treating independent journalists like criminals.”

    CPJ could not independently verify where Trang was being detained and under what conditions.

    Reuters reported that Trang was arrested just hours after an annual U.S.-Vietnam human rights dialogue meeting was concluded.

    Trang, who reports widely on human rights-related issues including cases of police abuse, founded the local Luat Khoa legal magazine and edits and writes for the independent English-language The Vietnamese news site, according to news reports.

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    Journalist Pham Doan Trang arrested on anti state charges in Vietnam Committee to Protect Journalists
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  • Pham Doan Trang in Radio Free Asia: Acclaimed Vietnam Journalist Pham Doan Trang Quits Publishing House After Harassment

    With mounting pressures from authorities that included abduction and abuses suffered by her colleagues, author, publisher and journalist Pham Doan Trang decided to step away from Liberal Publishing House.  

    Excerpt:

    Outspoken Vietnamese journalist and author Pham Doan Trang has withdrawn from an independent publisher of books on politics because of intense harassment by police over her work and the abduction and abuse of colleagues, she told RFA on Friday.

    The Liberal Publishing House was founded in Ho Chi Minh City in February 2019 by a group of dissidents who wanted to challenge the authoritarian, one-party government’s control of the publishing industry. Later that year, the government launched a targeted campaign aimed at shutting down the publisher and intimidating its writers and associates.

    s part of the campaign, public security forces questioned at least 100 people across the country, and searched the homes of at least a dozen, confiscating books on democracy and public policy printed by the publishing house, according to Amnesty International.

    Police also began abducting, detaining, and abusing people associated with the publisher, said Trang, a spokesperson and prominent author at the Liberal Publishing House with many titles under her name.

    “There are many reasons, but one important reason is because Liberal Publishing House’s members must endure much suffering,” she said.

    “Someone told me that our struggle is like suicide,” she added. “We only publish books, but Vietnamese authorities call it a crime and have directly confronted us, using force and causing much damage.”

    Whenever authorities have arrested and beaten the publishing house members, they have been seriously injured, she said, citing the case of Phung Thuy, who was abducted and beaten by authorities in early May and is now almost physically disabled.

    “He cannot move his hands or foot, and he shows signs of kidney failure and stomach bleeding,” she said.

    His case was the focus of an appeal by London-based Amnesty International on May 14 to Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc.

    ‘More and more violence’

    Trang wrote on her Facebook account that police have been harassing her for the past year, increasing their repression in September 2019 through this February, when they paused for the COVID-19 pandemic. They later resumed their activities with ferocity, she said.

    “They arrested and tortured a shipper who delivered books published by Liberal Publishing House in Saigon on May 8,” she wrote, referring to Phung Thuy. “Since then, all members of LPH have been hunted down and abducted by police.”

    Amid a spate of arrests and abuse of independent journalists this year in Vietnam, Trang told RFA in May that toleration of dissent was deteriorating and likely to get worse in the run-up to the ruling party congress next January.

    “Freedom has always been restricted, but nowadays it seems to be narrower, and there’s more and more violence,” she said at the time. “From now until the party congress, the scope of freedom can be tightened more and more, and the suppression will increase.”

    Trang, who released a well-regarded book titled Politics for Everyone under LPH, was awarded the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) 2019 Press Freedom Prize. She founded the online legal magazine Luat Khoa and edits another web-based rights journal called thevietnamese.

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    Acclaimed Vietnam Journalist Pham Doan Trang Quits Publishing House After Harassment Radio Free Asia
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  • Pham Doan Trang in Amnesty International – Viet Nam: Human rights champion arrested, at grave risk of torture

    Amnesty International is calling for the immediate and unconditional release of internationally acclaimed writer and human rights defender Pham Doan Trang after her arrest yesterday.  

    Excerpt:

    Responding to the arrest of Pham Doan Trang, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for Campaigns, Ming Yu Hah, said:
    “The arrest of Pham Doan Trang is reprehensible. She is a leading figure in the struggle for human rights in Viet Nam. She has inspired countless young activists to speak up for a more just, inclusive, and free Viet Nam.

    She has inspired countless young activists to speak up for a more just, inclusive, and free Viet Nam.Ming Yu Hah, Deputy Regional Director for Campaigns

    “Pham Doan Trang faces an imminent risk of torture and other-ill treatment at the hands of the Vietnamese authorities. She must be immediately and unconditionally released.

    “Pham Doan Trang has faced persecution due to her work as a woman human rights defender since her return to Viet Nam in 2015.  She previously required hospitalization after being subjected to torture and gender-based violence following her arbitrary arrest in 2018.”

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    Viet Nam Human rights champion arrested at grave risk of torture Amnesty International
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  • Pham Doan Trang in BBC News – Pham Doan Trang: Vietnam arrests leading pro-democracy blogger

    A few hours after The 24th annual US-Vietnam Human Rights Dialogue, Vietnamese authorities arrested journalist Pham Doan Trang on grounds of “anti-state propaganda.”  The acclaimed activist is a known advocate of democracy, press freedom and the rule of law in Vietnam.

    Excerpt:

    Pham Doan Trang was detained in Ho Chi Minh city late on Tuesday and accused of carrying out anti-state activities.

    Ms Trang has been detained before and is an advocate for democracy, press freedom and the rule of law in Vietnam.

    Vietnam’s one-party communist state frequently jails its critics. There was no immediate comment from the US.

    Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have demanded her immediate release.

    Ms Trang has been charged with “making, storing, disseminating or propagandising information, materials and products that aim to oppose the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam”, state media report.

    Such charges carrying jail terms of up to 20 years.

    “There will be more arrests of dissidents and human rights activists before the Communist Party’s 13th Congress early next year,” fellow dissident Pham Thanh Nghien told BBC Vietnamese. “It turns out Doan Trang is first in line.”

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    Pham Doan Trang Vietnam arrests leading pro democracy blogger BBC News
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  • Pham Doan Trang in the Coalition For Women In Journalism – Vietnam: Leading Democracy Activist And Award Winning Journalist Pham Doan Trang Arrested

    The CFWIJ strongly condemns the police brutality against journalists.  The organization calls the attacks, harassment and arrest made by the Vietnam authorities against acclaimed journalist, Luat Khoa  and The Vietnamese co-founder Pham Doan Trang “despicable.”

    Excerpt:

    RSF’s 2019 Press Freedom Prize winner journalist turned activist Pham Doan Trang was arrested today during a raid at her room that she rented. Due to constantly being chased out by police Pham is deprived of her right to a permanent residence.

    Pham had won the “Prize for Impact” last year, which is given to journalists whose work has led to concrete improvements in journalistic freedom, independence and pluralism, or to an increase in awareness of these matters. She is the founder of Luât Khoa, an online magazine that specializes in providing information about legal issues, and she edits another, thevietnamese, which also helps Vietnamese citizens to defend their rights and resist the Communist Party’s arbitrary rule.

    Pham covers a wide range of issues including LGBTQ rights, women’s rights, the environment, and democratic activism. She is also known for her on-the-ground activism, taking part in rallies in support of imprisoned dissidents. Pham has been beaten by the police because of her work and was detained arbitrarily twice for several days in 2018. She was also detained and harassed in 2016 after her meeting with the then US President Barack Obama and in 2017 after she met with the European Union delegation to talk about the stifling of human rights in Vietnam.

    Her arrest came hours after a bilateral meeting between Vietnam and US State Department. The meeting ironically touched on many important human rights issues including “continued progress and bilateral cooperation on the rule of law, freedom of expression and association, religious freedom and labor rights”.

    The Coalition For Women In Journalism finds targeted attacks and legal harassment against Pham Doan Trang utterly despicable. If Vietnam authorities don’t want its journalists to “complain” about human rights issues to foreign officials they should prove that the country is respecting fundamental rights starting with freedom of speech and freedom of expression.

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    Vietnam Leading Democracy Activist And Award Winning Journalist Pham Doan Trang Arrested Coalition For Women in Journalism
    Vietnam_ Leading Democracy Activist And Award Winning Journalist Pham Doan Trang Arrested — Coalition For Women in Journalism.pdf
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  • Pham Doan Trang in The Diplomat: Independent Journalists in Vietnam: The Clampdown Against Critics Continues

    According to Reporters without Borders (RSF), Vietnam has one of the world’s most repressive environments for journalists.  A lot of high-profile arrests were made including 2019 RSF Press Freedom Prize for Impact laureate Pham Doan Trang who was charged with “anti-state propaganda.”

    Excerpt:

    On April 24, Tran Thi Tuyet Dieu became the latest journalist to be jailed for daring to criticize Vietnam’s ruling communist party. Dieu was handed an eight year sentence for criticizing the party and advocating for democracy on social media. According to Reporters without Borders (RSF), Vietnam has one of the world’s most repressive environments for journalists, with only five countries scoring worse in the group’s latest annual report. These are difficult times for Vietnam’s independent journalists, and there is little cause for optimism.

    The year 2020 saw a spate of high-profile arrests as six independent journalists were arrested. In October 2020, the authorities arrested human rights and democracy advocate Pham Doan Trang. Trang, who received the RSF Press Freedom Prize for Impact in 2019, was arrested on the day of the 24th annual U.S.-Vietnam Human Rights Dialogue, in a blatant display of the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP)’s contempt for human rights.  She was charged with publishing “propaganda” against the state, a loosely-defined term that is often used to lock-up critics of the regime.

    The arrests are part of a deteriorating situation for free expression in Vietnam, with social media and online content coming under increasing scrutiny from online censors. In January 2019, the government passed a new cybersecurity law which demanded that technology companies hand over user data and enforce censorship. In April 2020, Facebook agreed to increase censorship of critical content after the government forced the company’s servers offline and restricted traffic to the site. Vietnam may be looking to create its own version of the Great Firewall of China, where content is scrupulously monitored and criticism of the regime is almost impossible. Although Vietnam is not currently powerful enough to do this, the approach it has taken so far suggests that in the long term it may well do so if it can.

    Social media in Vietnam is extremely popular, with Facebook boasting around 66 million users, around two-thirds of the total population. Social media can be a forum for political debate, criticism, and the free exchange of political ideas, all concepts which are anathema to the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP). According to The 88 Project’s annual Human Rights report, 10 online commentators were arrested in 2020. These commentators had no links to civil society groups and were jailed solely for what they posted online.

    The government would like social media to resemble an echo chamber of official party propaganda. To this end, it has recruited an army of online activists to promote party policy, harass critics, and monitor content for dissent. One favored tactic is to mass report critical content so it is removed by Facebook for breaching community guidelines. In November 2020, Reuters reported that Vietnam had threatened to shut down Facebook, despite the increased level of censorship that Facebook had enforced on the government’s behalf since the agreement in April. The VCP knows that Facebook is unlikely to pull out of such a lucrative market, and is sure to press for even more restrictions in the future.

    These are worrying times. As leading journalists are arrested and social media becomes increasingly restricted, it is hard to remain optimistic about the future of independent journalism in Vietnam. Freedom of the press is essential to hold politicians to account, and to represent the interests of ordinary citizens. Activists and journalists have used social media to organize opposition to unpopular laws, campaign against corruption, and protest against environmental destruction. Although taking away this power from its citizens may serve the interests of the VCP, it is ordinary Vietnamese people who will suffer the consequences.

    Independent Journalists in Vietnam The Clampdown Against Critics Continues The Diplomat
    Independent Journalists in Vietnam_ The Clampdown Against Critics Continues – The Diplomat.pdf
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  • LIV’s Trinh Huu Long in Al Jazeera: Vietnam’s battalions of ‘cyber-armies’ silencing online dissent

    Force 47 also known as Vietnam’s cyber armies under the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) hacks anti-government websites and asserts its control over online content by spreading pro-government messages in order to stamp out any form of dissent.

    Excerpt:

    Growing marking of 96 million people

    As Vietnamese searched for more information about what happened in Dong Tam a week ago, some Facebook users reported receiving the message online: “Due to legal requirements in your country, we have restricted access to your profile on Facebook. This means that other people in your country cannot see your profile, and may not be able to interact with you over Messenger.”

    Vietnam has a population of 96 million. With more than 60 million Facebook users, it is the platform’s one of the fastest-growing markets.

    Newspaper - Vietnam
    Reporters Without Borders ranks Vietnam near the bottom of its 2019 World Press Freedom Index at 176 out of 180 countries listed [Luong Thai Linh/EPA]

    “Facebook is the main source of independent news now in Vietnam,” said Trinh Huu Long, a co-founder of Legal Initiatives for Vietnam.

    “The government has been working with Facebook to try to control content posted by dissidents and independent voices,” he added.

    Searches for protests in Hong Kong have also been affected. Many, like Anh Chi, blame the cybersecurity law for the filtered information.

    “They know people in Vietnam are active on social media, and they follow the news, especially with what’s happening in Hong Kong every day,” he said. “The government fears that one day people in Vietnam will join such protests.”

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    Vietnams battalions of cyber armies silencing online dissent Freedom of the Press News Al Jazeera
    Vietnam’s battalions of ‘cyber-armies’ silencing online dissent _ Freedom of the Press News _ Al Jazeera.pdf
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  • LIV on Qurium Vi Tran: “We Are Trying To Help People That Want Political Pluralism In Vietnam”

    Legal Initiatives for VIETNAM co-director Vi Tran recalls why she stopped working as a lawyer in California to pursue activism for her motherland, Vietnam. Her works including as co-founders for 2 online magazines, Luật khoa and The Vietnamese- where she is an editor-in-chief, revolves around her mission that is “To speak up for those that can’t”.

    Excerpt:

    She stopped working as a lawyer in California five years ago and started volunteering with a group of human rights in Vietnam to advocate for a democratic movement in the country. Vi Tran co-founded the independent magazine Luat Khoa in 2014 and, in 2017, the newspaper The Vietnamese , where she is editor-in-chief. Her mission: “To speak up for those that can’t”.

    Vi Tran does not regret leaving her job in California and moving to Taiwan. A lot of people, including her own family, she says, don’t see things this way: “They may think that I am crazy, but there is one life to live”. Vi thinks that the Vietnamese people deserves a better regime: “I believe all Vietnamese should have their human rights respected”.

    According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Vietnam is the 6th most censored country on the world, with 11 journalists imprisoned. Reporters Without Borders states that in Vietnam “all media follow the Communist Party’s orders”. The only source of independently-reported information is bloggers and citizen-journalists, who are being subjected to persecution and prison.

    “I admire the bloggers who went to jail to keep their faith and belief in free press and freedom of expression”, Vi says. Pham Doan Trang, Luat Khoa’s co-founder, was also detained in February 2018 and now she lives at an undisclosed location. Except for her, the writers and editors of Luat Khoa and The Vietnamese have not been persecuted. Vi assures that her team takes security very seriously: “We could relocate our colleagues if we think they face danger”.

    But Luat Khoa and The Vietnamese have suffered another types of persecution: the websites are blocked in Vietnam since December 2017, one month after the birth of The Vietnamese. Vi suspects that was “because we attempted to get more publications in English, to give international readers about Vietnam, so the government blocked us”.

    Why are Luat Khoa and The Vietnamese so uncomfortable to the government? Luat Khoa is the “Law Magazine”, it talks about law, geopolitics, human rights and so and is written in Vietnamese. It has about ten regular writers, and five part-time writers that work in The Vietnamese as well. Some of them (30%) are lawyers and 80% live in Vietnam.

    “We are trying to help people that want political pluralism in Vietnam”

    Protests in Vietnam. June 10, 2018

    The Vietnamese is different from Luat Khoa. It is written in English and it acts on the basis that information about Vietnam is rather limited, foreigners often look into things that were produced by state-owned media. Vi says: “We needed to have an English site, to share with our international friends what is going on in Vietnam and give people a better idea of our movement”. The intention is “to educate people online via a website”.

    According to Vi, Vietnam is “an authoritarian regime that controls every single aspect of people’s life; there is no open Internet, it is under government control, so people are wanting the information”. There are revolutionary and oppositional forces in Vietnam, people that want to see changes, that want political pluralism. “We are trying to help them”, she says.

    Because of her current health problems, Vi Tran lives in California again. But she still works for The Vietnamese: “I am so grateful to be able to bring my compatriots stories to a larger stage and advocate for their rights”, she says. And adds: “I have tremendous love for my country and my people, no matter how far away I live away from them”.

    “Government blocks us but people want to access our information and find a way”.

    Hers is a matter of pure patriotic vision: “I have seen a lot of courageous people from Vietnam keep fighting for our human rights and civil rights, and I want to join them to push our democracy forwards”. For her, living to contribute to her country is no regrets: “I will continue to advocate and fight for Vietnam’s democracy until the day I pass away”.

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    Vi Tran We are trying to help people that want political pluralism in Vietnam Qurium Media Foundation
    Vi Tran_ “We are trying to help people that want political pluralism in Vietnam” – Qurium Media Foundation.pdf
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