Ahead of Vietnam Human Rights Day, celebrated in the United States, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and a coalition of press freedom NGOs are calling on the U.S. State Department to put pressure on the regime to release journalist Pham Doan Trang, and all reporters detained in the country, which ranks 173rd out of 180 countries, at the bottom of the RSF World Press Freedom Index.
On 6 May 2025, a week before Vietnam Human Rights Day — an annual commemoration established by the U.S. Congress — a coalition of NGOs — led by PEN International, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Legal Initiatives for Vietnam, and RSF — sent a letter to the U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, urging him to take concrete steps in support of detained journalists in Vietnam.
The letter notably highlights the case of the founder of the online magazines Luat Khoa and The Vietnamese Pham Doan Trang, also laureate of RSF’s 2019 Press Freedom Award and the U.S. State Department’s 2022 International Women of Courage Award. Trang, detained since 2020, is currently serving a nine-year prison sentence for spreading “propaganda against the state,” without appropriate medical care that put her life at risk.
“As a key economic partner of Vietnam, the United States must take a stand against the Vietnamese regime’s systematic violations of press freedom and the right to information. We urge Secretary of State Marco Rubio to intensify pressure on the authorities in Hanoi to secure the release of Pham Doan Trang and the other 36 journalists and press freedom defenders currently behind bars.
Systematic repression of independent journalism
In the letter, the coalition also called on the U.S. State Department to facilitate humanitarian visas and provide financial assistance to Vietnamese journalists at risk, as well as to allocate resources to support independent media and press freedom initiatives in the country.
Since taking power in August 2024, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, To Lam, has continued to crack down on press freedom, following in the footsteps of his predecessor, Nguyen Phu Trong. Journalists critical of the government are frequently accused of spreading “propaganda against the state” or “abusing democratic freedoms” — charges that can lead to sentences of up to 20 years in prison.
In parallel to its advocacy efforts towards governments and international institutions, RSF is also calling on the public to take action by signing a petition demanding Pham Doan Trang’s immediate release.
