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October 06, 2025 – Vietnam –
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and an international coalition of human-rights and free-expression groups renewed demands for the release of Vietnamese journalist and activist Phạm Đoan Trang, marking the fifth anniversary of her arrest.
Trang, who founded the independent outlets Luật Khoa and The Vietnamese, was detained in Ho Chi Minh City on October 6, 2020. She was held incommunicado for over a year and, in December 2021, given a nine-year prison sentence under Vietnam’s “anti-state propaganda” law—a broadly applied statute frequently used to stifle dissent.
According to the coalition, Trang’s detention conditions have deteriorated. In 2022, she was transferred to a prison facility nearly 1,000 miles away from her home, complicating family visits, especially for her elderly mother. She reportedly endures multiple health challenges—including a disability stemming from a 2015 assault by security forces, chronic ailments, and lingering effects of COVID-19—all made worse by limited medical access in custody.
The joint statement—endorsed by about 21 organizations, including RSF, Front Line Defenders, PEN America, CPJ, Amnesty International, and others—urges Vietnam’s authorities to immediately and unconditionally free Trang and guarantee her safety, access to independent medical care, consistent communication with family, and legal representation of her choice.
Trang’s case has become emblematic of a broader crackdown on press freedom and civil society in Vietnam. Her earlier experiences already involved repeated harassment, temporary detentions, and attacks—most notably in 2015 when she was physically assaulted during an environmental protest and left disabled. The coalition statement calls her imprisonment a symbol of the regime’s efforts to silence critical voices and urges the international community to raise pressure on Hanoi to reverse its course.
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