Pham Doan Trang
Fuentes
Pham Doan Trang is a journalist-activist in Viet Nam. Her activity covers a wide range of issues including LGBTQ rights, anti-corruption, women’s rights, the environment, and democratic activism. She is also known for her on-the-ground activism, taking part in rallies in support of imprisoned dissidents. On October 6, 2020, the police raided her apartment in Ho Chi Minh City and arrested her on charges of making and disseminating propaganda against the Vietnamese state. She faces up to 20 years in prison. Ms. Pham’s arrest may have been prompted by a report she co-wrote last month challenging the official account of a deadly police raid in Dong Tam village, near Hanoi. The raid was linked to a land dispute which began in 2015 when officials transferred 145 acres to the country’s largest telecommunications company, the Viettel Corp., but residents refused to give up their land. Ms. Pham also reported on a 2016 environmental disaster caused when a Taiwanese-owned steel factory discharged toxic waste into the sea along a stretch of Vietnam’s central coast. Other activists who wrote about the disaster landed in prison.