January 4, 2021

We, the undersigned media organizations, condemn the arrest, detention, and the upcoming trial of the three journalists, Pham Chi Dung, Nguyen Tuong Thuy, and Le Huu Minh Tuan. The Vietnamese government has charged them with Section 2, Article 117, of the 2015 Penal Code (revised in 2017) for “making, storing, spreading information, materials, items that contain distorted information about the people’s government.” The trial is expected to commence on January 5, 2021, at the People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City.

The three journalists mentioned above have been active members of the Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam (IJAVN). Mr. Pham Chi Dung is the president, Mr. Nguyen Tuong Thuy is the vice-president, and Mr. Le Huu Minh Tuan is the editor. All three have also been journalists for the Vietnam Time newspaper, a media organization of the IJAVN.

These journalists are being persecuted and brought to trial because they have exercised their rights of free speech, free press, and the freedom of assembly. These are the fundamental human rights that both Vietnam’s Constitution and international law wholeheartedly recognized. The Vietnamese regime may use whichever propaganda to rationalize its decision, but it cannot change the facts and the reality of this case. The truth is that in Vietnam, the current regime has put itself in the same position as the feudal monarchies of the past and is sentencing people in a literacy inquisition.

We declare that we stand with Pham Chi Dung, Nguyen Tuong Thuy, Le Huu Minh Tuan, and the IJAVN to build a free media in Vietnam. We demand the Vietnamese government immediately and unconditionally release the three journalists.

Jointly signed,

Luat Khoa Magazine

The Vietnamese Magazine

On October 6, 2020 at 23:30, the Vietnamese authorities arrested Pham Doan Trang, a current member of our editorial board, in Ho Chi Minh City. She was charged with “conducting propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” under Article 88 of the 1999 Penal Code, and “making, storing, spreading information, materials, items for the purpose of opposing the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” under Article 117 of the 2015 Penal Code.

The Vietnamese Magazine, strongly condemn this blatant violation of human rights committed by the Vietnamese authorities. Pham Doan Trang is a highly-respected journalist who has diligently expanded the political and legal information for the masses in Vietnam, encouraging people to practice the universal values of freedom and democracy that are stated clearly in Vietnam’s Constitution and which the government has also supported in many of the international treaties it has signed. A journalist should be allowed to report and a writer must be able to publish her books in every corner of this world. Journalism is not a crime and journalists should not be treated as criminals. The suppression of these basic human rights should be treated as a crime.

We demand the Vietnamese government release journalist Pham Doan Trang unconditionally and immediately. In the meantime, from now until she is released, we demand that the authorities uphold her rights and legal interests, including her right not to be tortured, right to have legal representation, right to meet her family, right to privacy, right to medical assistance, and the right to have a full and complete access to all the files related to her case.

We also encourage our readers and those who care about Vietnam and Vietnamese citizens to raise objections against this arrest and join us in our demand to have Pham Doan Trang released immediately. Please join us in continuing her fight for freedom and in reporting, publishing, translating, and raising our voices against injustice whenever and wherever possible.

Tran Quynh Vi – editor-in-chief

As media organizations, Luat Khoa and The Vietnamese magazines vehemently denounce the three recent arrests of the three members of IJAVN: Le Huu Minh Tuan (detained on June 12, 2020), Nguyen Tuong Thuy (detained on May 23, 2020, and Pham Chi Dung (detained on November 21, 2019).

All of these three journalists were charged with the crime “publish, store, and disseminate or propagandize information, documentation, and products against the Social Republic of Vietnam” (Article 117 of Vietnam’s current Penal Code). This penal code has already been viewed as a blatant violation of people’s freedom of speech and free press by many human rights organizations. 

IJAVN – together with running its Vietnam Thoi Bao newspaper – is a regular civil society organization formed under the right to associate, and it sets to implement the right for a free press and promote an independent and decent media for Vietnam.

Luat Khoa and The Vietnamese magazines share and support the values in which the IJAVN pursues. 

As journalists, we ultimately care for the safety of our other colleagues. We consider the reality of a government trying to silence any journalist to be an imminent threat to us and anyone who practices free speech.

Silencing journalists is also a violation of the right to read free and independent media of the people.

We have realized that the call for the government of Vietnam to release immediately and unconditionally these three journalists of IJAVN would be unrealistic in the situation of Vietnam. However, that action is the only righteous conduct that the Vietnamese government could act right now, and therefore, we call on them to immediately do so.

We also call on all of the journalists, the activists, the public, the international organizations, and the foreign governments to jointly monitor and pressure the Vietnamese authorities to release the three journalists, Pham Chi Dung, Nguyen Tuong Thuy, and Le Huu Minh Tuan; and to call on the government to respect the Vietnamese people’s right for a free press and the freedom to form associations.

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To contact us, please email editor@luatkhoa.org.