Police officers are seen in Vung Tau, Vietnam, on September 30, 2021. CPJ today joined a joint letter calling for the release of imprisoned journalist Pham Doan Trang. (AP/Hau Dinh)

CPJ joins letter calling for release of Vietnamese journalist Pham Doan Trang

The Committee to Protect Journalists today joined 27 other free speech and human rights organizations in an open letter urging Vietnamese authorities to immediately and unconditionally release journalist Pham Doan Trang.

The letter is timed to coincide with the start of her trial on November 4; Trang has been held in pretrial detention for over a year on anti-state charges, as CPJ has documented.

The letter states that she was held without access to her family or lawyers from her detention on October 6, 2020, until October 19, 2021, when she was granted a meeting with a lawyer. It also notes that Trang is “being persecuted for her long-standing work as an independent journalist, book publisher, and human rights defender, known for writing about topics ranging from environmental rights to police violence, as well as for her advocacy for press freedom.”

The joint letter can be read in full here.