Who is Anh Chi? – Vietnam locks up Nguyen Chi Tuyen, the YouTuber who spoke to everyday people
Nguyen Chi Tuyen will be tried for “making, storing or distributing information, documents and items aimed against the state of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” (Article 117) on August 15 in Hanoi. He was arrested on February, 29, 2024, and held incommunicado. Project88 spoke with Bennett Murray, former bureau chief for DPA (the German press agency) in Hanoi, and two activists, to learn more about Tuyen’s work and motivations. Watch the video interviews with Murray below. And read excerpts from all three interviews in the article that follows.
VIDEO CLIPS
Anh Chi’s work — he was a generalist
“He loves his country. He is not violent.“
“We’re really proud of the work you’ve done“
“But a special kind of courage is when you’re all alone, there’s no one around that is helping you, or if they are, they’re as powerless as you are, and it’s just about putting your head into the jaws of the beast and just letting it get ready to chomp on your head. And I honestly don’t really understand. I’m not that level of brave, and I don’t really know how he could do it except for just wholehearted conviction, you know, since this is just sort of the burden he had to bear.”
— Bennett Murray on his friend and former colleague, Nguyen Chi Tuyen
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August 14, 2024,
Unlike his blogger counterparts in other countries, Nguyen Chi Tuyen‘s popularity was not reflected in throngs of people coming up to greet him in public, nor measured by viral video clips reshared at lightning speed. In Vietnam, whose one-party government controls all independent media and keeps a tight hand over the mouths of dissenters, those who followed Tuyen, better known by his penname Anh Chi, had to show their support in a different way. And they did.
He had a “very large but kind of invisible fan base,” said Bennett Murray, former bureau chief for DPA in Hanoi, who is a friend and former colleague of Tuyen’s, working with him from 2016-2019. “I travelled with him quite a bit, you know, going to random places, meeting random people on the streets, whatever, taxis .. and he got like ID’ed a lot,” Murray continued. “We were in a taxi, and a taxi driver was like ‘hey, are you Anh Chi?’ and of course, he’s trying to be incognito, so he just slyly just kind of gives a non-denial denial.”
The now 50 year-old father of two is arguably one of the most well known Vietnamese bloggers of the early and mid 2010s—a time when social media saw a meteoric rise in popularity in Vietnam. Tuyen’s hundreds of videos served as both an introduction to and an overview of important political and social issues in Vietnam. He goes to trial later this week, on August 15, on anti-state charges that could land him up to 12 years in prison.
Tuyen didn’t start out with dreams of becoming a political commentator for the masses. He had a career in publishing before becoming an activist. Inspired by the anti-China protest movement of the early 2010s, he began blogging and expanding his network as Vietnamese tutor and translator. That’s how he met Murray. Murray explained how Tuyen reported on stories flying under the radar of major media outlets, both domestic and foreign, earning him respect from impacted communities. “He would kind of tune in to whatever was the big one at the moment. So during the 2016 fish kill down by the coast, that was his thing for that year,” said Murray.
“Tuyen is a straight shooter, an upright human being,” another friend and longtime activist, who wished to remain anonymous, told Project88. “His love of country is deep and strong.” He recounted how Tuyen would participate in demonstrations for all kinds of topics, often leading them. “He had many creative ideas on how to protest,” remarked the activist. “My favorite is the time he dressed up in traditional costumes and read a eulogy for a canal that had been destroyed. He would often get assigned the speaker job not only because he was young and articulate, but also because he was extremely brave.”
Tuyen also liaised with diplomats (even meeting former US Senator John McCain) and western media, travelled to visit political prisoners with their families, and was a founding member of the No-U group, which used football as way to unite young people to discuss politics. Tuyen’s YouTube channel “Anh Chí Râu Đen” amassed nearly 100,000 followers, while his Facebook account Nguyen Chi Tuyen (Anh Chí) has more than 53,000 followers. His other YouTube channel “AC Media,” which focuses on coverage and commentary on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has attracted almost 60,000 subscribers.
In May 2017, Tuyen was attacked by plainclothes police when driving his son home from school, beaten and left unconscious. Undeterred, he immediately posted a photo of his bloodied face online, igniting a wave of people changing their profile images to match his.
Given his far-reaching involvement and popularity, it came as no surprise to Tuyen’s friends and colleagues that he was finally arrested in early 2024. It didn’t matter that he had been largely inactive online in the prior few years. Tuyen had been “invited” for police questioning several times in the months leading up to his arrest. He had also been banned from leaving the country.
On February 29, 2024, at around 10 am, the Hanoi Security Investigation Agency searched Nguyen Chi Tuyen’s house in Long Bien, Hanoi, and arrested him under Article 117 for “making, storing or distributing information, documents and items aimed against the state of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.” His wife, Nguyen Thi Anh Tuyet, reported to Project88 that about ten men, only two of whom were in uniforms, entered the home and took him away after confiscating documents and electronics. Tuyet said the police did not present a warrant and only relayed the charges verbally. Nguyen Chi Tuyen was then held incommunicado for the first several months of his detention period.
International media and governments have largely been silent on Tuyen’s arrest, instead rewarding Hanoi with recent visits from top diplomats and continued promises to enhance ties. While this is largely the norm now as western countries obfuscate Vietnam’s human rights record in favor of building China containment strategies, it stings even more in the case of Tuyen, who himself worked closely with many diplomats and journalists visiting and based in Vietnam. For Bennett Murray, the former DPA bureau chief, this doesn’t sit well. “You just can’t leave people who are your friends, or who are helping you, or who you have this relationship with who would have helped you.”
But Tuyen’s story is more than just personal. It’s part of larger forces at play.
Since former General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong’s hardline faction rose to power in 2016, Vietnam has deepened and widened its crackdown on dissent. From 2018-2023, the country arrested at least 330 people on political charges. In recent years, Vietnam has also jailed top climate leaders and government reformers, restricted funding to civil society, forced human rights lawyers into exile, and codified repression of rights into official state policy with Directive 24. The country is a top jailer of journalists globally, currently holding at least 27 journalists and bloggers behind bars. In fact, the same day that Nguyen Chi Tuyen was arrested, authorities also detained award-winning writer and Radio Free Asia contributor Nguyen Vu Binh. Binh is also being held incommunicado and awaiting trial.
Given the bleak political reality in Vietnam, there is little hope that Nguyen Chi Tuyen will be free anytime soon, nor even that he will receive a light prison sentence this week. In all reality, Tuyen likely faces a long prison sentence ahead in an infamously harsh prison system.
“Even though I don’t think anything the international community does or says can change the outcome of his upcoming trial, I believe we still need to bring it to everyone’s attention,” another friend of Tuyen’s told Project88. “The world needs to know that such patriots do exist in Vietnam and that their imprisonment is completely unjust.”
And perhaps this awareness raising can push the news of Tuyen’s trial to reach those who once eagerly watched his YouTube commentaries. Musing on whether Tuyen’s fans still think about him, Murray said, “I would not be surprised if they still do, and I think a lot of them would be ready for him to come back if he ever gets the chance.”
“I think he spoke to people on a very individual level, not just sort of trading stories and ideas with fellow travelers, but actually reaching out to people on social media and really talking to the people who …. people who have a need to hear sort of alternative takes on the way things are in Vietnam and of the Communist Party.”
In a 2017 interview in the Mekong Review, Tuyen recounted a time he was invited by a police officer for a beer. The officer told Tuyen he admired his work and respected him. To this, Tuyen said, “I looked directly into his eyes and I think it’s true, not just mouthing the words. And I know some of them support me. Or at least they don’t consider me an enemy because they know how I have sacrificed my energy, my time to work, not for my own interests, but for the whole country.”
And now that Tuyen has sacrificed even more than that, we must see that he is not forgotten.
Project88 calls on Nguyen Chi Tuyen’s friends and former partners to intervene to ensure an open trial this week and to work to secure his immediate and unconditional release from prison.
© 2024 The 88 Project
