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(Bangkok) Vietnamese Authorities should immediately drop all charges and release prominent rights activist Nguyen Chi Xuan, Human Rights Watch said today. Hanoi police arrested Xuan on February 29, 2024, for criticizing the government on social media. He was charged with violating Article 117 of the Criminal Code, which criminalizes “the production, storage, dissemination, or promotion of information, materials, and products aimed at opposing the state.”
Nguyen Chi Xuan is due to go on trial in a Hanoi court on August 15. If convicted, he faces up to 12 years in prison.
“The Vietnamese authorities targeted Nguyen Chi Xuan for expressing views they did not like,” Patricia GoldsmanDeputy Director of the Asia Division at Human Rights Watch. “The government should stop jailing peaceful dissidents, repeal its draconian criminal code, and end its systematic violations of basic rights.”
Nguyen Chi Xuan (also known as Anh Chi), 50, is an activist who uses YouTube, Facebook and other social media to comment on social and political issues. His main YouTube channel, Anh Chi Rau Den, has produced more than 1,600 videos and has 98,000 subscribers. His second YouTube channel, AC Media, has produced more than 1,000 videos and has nearly 60,000 subscribers.
Nguyen Chi Xuan is now closed No UFC No U-line Football Club, a football team whose members speak out Oppose China’s territorial claims over waters claimed by VietnamHe helped organize and participated in several anti-China protests in the early 2010s, as well as environmental protests in the mid-2010s. He worked with other activists to provide humanitarian assistance to the rural poor and victims of natural disasters.
He has also publicly supported imprisoned human rights activists, including Fan Duanzhuang, Can Tho, Ruan Xiangrui, Nguyen Huu Vinh (also known as Ba Sam), and Nguyen Lan ThangBefore Lan Thang’s trial, Xuan published an open letter in support of his friend, writing: “The only thing we can do is to act according to our conscience and speak out our thoughts, our wishes, our desires.”
Nguyen Chi Xuan has been threatened and harassed by the police many times. House arrestinternational travel bans, arbitrary detention and interrogation. In May 2015, five unidentified men Attacked and beat him He was shot near his home in Hanoi. The attack left him with facial injuries that required stitches.
Despite the risk of prosecution on politically motivated charges, Nguyen Chi Xuan continues to fight for human rights and democracy. 2017 Interview In the Mekong Review, he said: “[Communist officials]hold all the power. They have the prisons, the guns, the police, the army, the courts: they own everything. They have the media. We have nothing but our hearts and our minds. We think this is the right thing to do … that’s all.”
Nguyen Chi Tuyen’s trial coincided with Dulin Tou Linh served as Vietnam’s notorious Minister of Public Security from April 2016 to May 2024, during which time Vietnamese police arrested at least 269 people for peacefully exercising their basic civil and political rights.
“As long as the Vietnamese government continues to jail dissidents like Nguyen Chi Xuan for speaking their minds, it will remain mired in repression,” Gosman said. “Vietnam’s international donors and trading partners should have no illusions about dealing with this rights-violating government.”
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