Bùi Văn Thuận was born in 1982 and from the Muong ethnic minority. After graduating from university, he worked as a high school teacher in Hanoi. In the early 2010s, he began to raise his criticism of corruption issues and to participate in anti-China protests. Due to these activities, the police pressured the high school to terminate his contract. [1]
Activism
Mr. Thuận owns a Facebook page with over 25.000 followers called “Bùi Văn Thuận.” He blogged about news, jokes, and parodies that criticized the corruption in government and, most recently, how the government was handling the COVID-19 pandemic. He is a member of the Brotherhood for Democracy. He joined in peaceful demonstrations against China’s nine-dash line territorial claim.
According to The Guardian and Los Angeles Times, on January 1, 2020, two days to the Dong Tam case, Mr. Thuận publicly criticized authorities on Facebook for their actions against the Dong Tam villagers and predicted an imminent crackdown. [2][3][4] Following that Facebook post, his account was restricted due to “legal requirement,” and the ban was permanent.
Mr. Thuận reported the problem to the department responsible for human rights policy of Facebook inSingapore. It was not until September 2020 that his Facebook account was reactivated with a response that the restriction was in error. The access to the account, nevertheless, has been under significant restriction.
Besides issues from Mr. Thuận’s Facebook account, he was also put under pressure from the government during his activism. On the afternoon of July 27, 2018, public security suddenly came to Mr. Thuận’s friend’s to search for a t-shirt printing protesting against the nine-dash line’s claim of China. A day prior to that, Mr. Thuận had handed his friend the t-shirt; the security didn’t present any search warrant or legal document. The police confiscated Mr. Thuận’s laptop and interrogated him about the t-shirt. He was released, but the police did not return his laptop.
Moreover, the police also constantly put pressure on the landlord, forcing him, his wife, and his daughter to repeatedly change their accommodation.
Arrest and pretrial detention
On August 30, 2021, approximately 100 uniformed and non-uniformed police officers surrounded Mr. Thuận’s house. Three men told his wife they needed to enter to do COVID testing. After that, they suddenly handcuffed Mr. Thuận in his bedroom and started to read the arrest warrant. They confiscated many of his belongings, including electrical devices and one jar of honey.
He was accused of “anti-state propaganda” under article 117 and is being held in a pretrial detention center in Thanh Hoa Province.
In October 2021, Mr. Thuận’s wife was notified by detention center authorities that he was hospitalized. His family has not been allowed to directly visit or contact him, at least until August 2022.
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References:
[1] https://the88project.org/profile/273/bui-van-thuan/ [2] https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/oct/08/vietnam-arrests-prominent-journalist-as-state-cracks-down-on-free-speech-online [3] https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-10-22/facebook-censorship-suppress-dissent-vietnam [4] https://www.luatkhoa.org/2021/03/tong-hop-cac-thong-tin-can-biet-ve-vu-an-dong-tam/
