Journalists still arrested in Vietnam, the latest is blogger Huy Đức
The journalist and intellectual was picked up before an event in Hanoi, but news filtered out only recently. He is the latest victim in an anti-corruption “blazing furnace” campaign leading up to the nomination of the future leader of the Communist Party (and the country). Trần Đình Triển, a lawyer, has also been detained.
Hanoi (AsiaNews) – Another journalist has become the victim of Vietnam’s crackdown on independent journalism.
Huy Đức, the pen name of Trương Huy San, is a journalist and intellectual known for his blog; he was arrested ahead of an event he was set to attend in the capital Hanoi on 1 June.
His friends and fellow activists were able to report his disappearance and the reasons only recently.
Huy’s story shows once more how Vietnam’s anti-corruption “blazing furnace” campaign is still going strong.
A directive has been in place for some time to ensure that political and business leaders align with the ideology of the ruling Communist Party, ahead of the congress that is expected to pick a successor to three-time General Secretary Nguyễn Phú Trọng, 82, in January 2026.
As part of this, the authorities are cracking down on media, a sign of the limits, weaknesses, and arbitrariness of the country’s leadership.
In the 2024 Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders, Vietnam is ranked near the bottom, 174th out of 180 in terms of press freedom.
The Committee to Protect Journalists describes Vietnam as "the fifth worst jailer of journalists in the world,” and at least 19 reporters were in prison last year.
Upon hearing reports of Huy’s disappearance and shortly before the authorities announced his arrest, RSF Asia-Pacific Bureau Director Cédric Alviani, said that "the articles of the independent journalist Huy Đức are an irreplaceable source of information”.
Huy’s reports, Alviani adds, allow "the Vietnamese public to access information censored by the Hanoi regime," adding a request to the authorities to "immediately release the journalist and to reinstall his Facebook page”, which was shut down without any explanation after the arrest of the veteran journalist.
Now in his 60s, Trương Huy San served as an officer in the Vietnamese army and fought in the Sino-Vietnamese Border War (1979) and the Vietnamese-Cambodian War (1977-1991)
After that he turned to journalism, but was fired from the newspaper he worked for in 2009 for not following the party line. Since then, he has pursued an independent course that has brought him recognition from abroad but difficult relations at home.
An intellectual and witness of his time, Huy is also the author of a two-volume history of post-reunification Vietnam.
Meanwhile, lawyer Trần Đình Triển was arrested, like Huy, under Article 331 of the Penal Code, which entails a two to seven years jail term for those who abuse freedom of speech.
(Photo: Human Rights Watch)
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15/12/2020 09:40
