Bangkok, March 7, 2024—Vietnam should immediately release independent bloggers Nguyen Chi Tuyen and Nguyen Vu Binh, drop any charges pending against them, and cease harassing the free press, the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Thursday.
On February 29, Tuyen, one of Vietnam’s best-known civil society activists and YouTubers, and Binh, a two-time recipient of a Human Rights Watch award for persecuted writers, were arrested by police in their homes in the capital, Hanoi.
“Vietnam must free bloggers Nguyen Chi Tuyen and Nguyen Vu Binh and cease its unremitting harassment of independent reporters,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “It’s high time Vietnam stopped equating journalism with criminal behavior.”
In Tuyen’s case, police and plainclothes officials seized a Nokia mobile phone, a laptop, and documents during the arrest, according to multiple news reports. He faces charges of “propagandizing against the state” under Article 117 of the penal code and will be detained for four months pending investigations, those sources said.
Tuyen, also known as Anh Chi, uses social media to report and comment on political and social issues. He focuses on the Ukraine war on his AC Media YouTube channel, which has some 57,000 followers, while his Anh Chi Rau Den YouTube channel has 98,000 subscribers, according to CPJ’s review.
Tuyen was barred by authorities from leaving the country in January because of a security agency investigation, those sources said.
The second blogger, Binh, was arrested on unclear charges after being summoned to meet with the police the previous day, according to news reports.
Since 2015, Binh has written regularly for the U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Asia (RFA) about rights and democracy in Vietnam. Binh’s last article before his arrest, published by RFA on February 22, criticized the government’s persistent crackdown on pro-democracy activists.
A former reporter with the state-owned Tap Chi Cong San (Communist Review) magazine, Binh was jailed for espionage in 2003 after he began writing online articles promoting democracy. He was freed in 2007 under an amnesty order.
In 2002 and 2007, he won Human Rights Watch’s Hellman-Hammett Award, given to writers who have been victims of political persecution.
Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security did not immediately respond to CPJ’s emailed request for comment on Tuyen and Binh’s arrests.
Vietnam was the fifth worst jailer of journalists worldwide, with at least 19 reporters behind bars on December 1, 2023, in CPJ’s latest annual global prison census.