(Bangkok) – The Vietnamese authorities should immediately drop all charges and release the prominent rights activist Nguyen Chi Tuyen, Human Rights Watch said today. Hanoi police arrested Nguyen Chi Tuyen on February 29, 2024, for criticizing the government on social media. He was charged under article 117 of the penal code, which criminalizes “making, storing, disseminating, or propagandizing information, materials and products that aim to oppose the State.”
Nguyen Chi Tuyen’s trial is scheduled for August 15 at a court in Hanoi. If convicted, he faces up to 12 years in prison.
“Vietnam’s authorities have targeted Nguyen Chi Tuyen for expressing views they don’t like,” said Patricia Gossman, associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should stop jailing peaceful critics, repeal its draconian penal laws, and end the systematic violation of basic rights.”
Nguyen Chi Tuyen (also known as Anh Chi), 50, is a rights campaigner who uses YouTube, Facebook, and other social media to comment on social and political issues. His primary YouTube channel, Anh Chi Rau Den, has produced over 1,600 videos and has 98,000 subscribers. His second YouTube channel, AC Media, has produced more than 1,000 videos and has almost 60,000 subscribers.
Nguyen Chi Tuyen was a founding member of the now closed No-U FC (No U-line Football Club), a soccer team whose members were outspoken against China’s territorial claims on maritime areas claimed by Vietnam. He helped organize and participated in many anti-China protests in the early 2010s, and pro-environmental protests in the mid-2010s. He joined fellow activists to provide humanitarian assistance to impoverished people in rural areas and victims of natural disasters.
He also openly supported imprisoned rights activists including Pham Doan Trang, Can Thi Theu, Nguyen Tuong Thuy, Nguyen Huu Vinh (also known as Ba Sam), and Nguyen Lan Thang. Prior to Nguyen Lan Thang’s trial, Nguyen Chi Tuyen published an open letter in support of his friend. He wrote, “The only thing we did was to act in accordance with our conscience, speak up our thoughts, our desire, our longing.”
Nguyen Chi Tuyen has repeatedly faced police intimidation, harassment, house arrest, bans on international travel, arbitrary detention, and interrogations. In May 2015, five unidentified men attacked and beat him near his house in Hanoi. The attack left him with injuries that required stitches on his face.
Despite the risk of prosecution on politically motivated charges, Nguyen Chi Tuyen continued his campaign for human rights and democracy. In a 2017 interview in Mekong Review, he said, “[Communist Party officials] have all the power in their hands. They have prisons, they have guns, policemen, army force, the court: they have everything. They have media. We have nothing except our hearts, and our minds. And we think it’s the right thing to do … that’s all.”
Nguyen Chi Tuyen’s trial occurs just as To Lam takes office as Vietnam’s newly appointed Communist Party general secretary. To Lam served as head of Vietnam’s notorious Ministry of Public Security between April 2016 and May 2024, during which the Vietnamese police arrested at least 269 people who had peacefully exercised their basic civil and political rights.
“The Vietnamese government will remain mired in oppression so long as it continues to lock up dissidents like Nguyen Chi Tuyen who dare to speak their minds,” Gossman said. “Vietnam’s international donors and trade partners shouldn’t have any illusions when dealing with this rights-abusing government.”
