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Fighting for Freedom of Speech and Information in Vietnam

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By TaiwanPlus

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Fifty years after the end of the Vietnam War, the country has become a hub for manufacturing and foreign investment. However, while the economy has opened up, the country remains closed in terms of political and press freedoms. Journalists who attempt to report independently do so at high risk, facing jail or exile. Trịnh Hữu Long is one journalist who went into exile to open and manage Legal Initiatives for Vietnam, an NGO maintaining independent publishing outlets for Vietnamese journalists and readers. In this episode of Zoom In Zoom Out, Long explains why he preserves banned books and how he goes about fighting for press freedom in his homeland.

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Trịnh Hữu Long, a Vietnamese journalist and democracy activist living in exile in Taiwan, is trying to keep Vietnamese press freedom alive from his small office at National Chengchi University in Taipei, despite the heavy censorship of the Communist Party in his home country of Vietnam. 

 

Born in northern Vietnam in 1986 to a family of Communist Party members, Long’s path diverged sharply after law school in Hanoi. “Three years after I graduated, I participated in a protest movement that was the largest and the longest protest movements in Vietnam after the Vietnam War,” he said. The protests, triggered by Chinese aggression in the South China Sea, were, according to Long, about more than patriotism. “It was a way to practice leveraging and using a patriotic movement to practice human rights.” 

 

Long was arrested during the 2011 demonstrations and briefly detained. His experiences living under surveillance after his release convinced him that his journalistic work could not continue safely within Vietnam. After stints with both state and non-state media, he left the country in 2013. “Since 2013, I have been operating independent media outlets and working for various human rights organizations overseas.” 

 

In 2016, Long moved to Taiwan after observing the presidential election that brought President Tsai Ing-wen to power. “We were deeply moved and inspired by what we saw in Taiwan that day... Everyone was thinking that this could be Vietnam in 30 years.” He believes Taiwan's peaceful democratization offers a hopeful model for Vietnam, particularly given the countries' shared cultural roots and geopolitical challenges. 

 

Now leading Legal Initiatives for Vietnam (LIV), Long oversees two digital magazines, one in Vietnamese and one in English, aiming to provide “useful, verified, accurate, unbiased information” to Vietnamese audiences. “We wanted to build an independent media movement... not only independent but also quality media.” 

 

However, censorship back home still casts a long shadow. “Most people decided not to even like the post on social media,” Long said, noting that fear of state reprisal has led to widespread self-censorship. 

 

One of LIV’s co-founders, journalist Phạm Đoan Trang, was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2021 for “anti-state propaganda,” including publishing banned books and giving interviews to foreign media. Long preserves her books, along with other banned Vietnamese literature, in a small library in Taipei. “I have the responsibility to preserve her books... These brilliant works by brilliant people [are] the nation's collective memory.” 

 

Asked if he had a message for Vietnamese viewers, Long emphasized hope and empathy. “We need to be resilient... We need to create a culture of listening to understand... The country needs us to collaborate.”