Mac Van Trang

Born in 1938 in Nam Sach County, Hai Duong Province, he worked for 30 years at The Vietnam National Institute of Educational Sciences and retired in 2002.

Mac Van Trang was a 54-year member of the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP). In October 2018, he and writer Nguyen Ngoc announced they were quitting the VCP to protest its disciplinary action against the Former Vice-minister (of the Ministry of Science and Technology) Chu Hao for his criticisms of the government.

Trang was outspoken against the Dong Tam attack in January 2020 and the subsequent arrests of villagers. He also went to Dong Tam to meet with some of the victims. His online posts following the incident resulted in “warning phone calls” from unknown callers, he said.

Since the covid-19 pandemic, Trang has been vocal against the use of Chinese vaccines such as Sinopharm. Besides postings on his personal Facebook page (Mac Van Trang), he has also written to the leadership of HCMC urging them not to inoculate citizens with Chinese vaccines. He reported that an anonymous caller said: “Keep your mouth shut, watch out for your life. People are dying; any vaccine right now is good. Blocking it is a crime…”

He is recently re-married. His wife is the famous writer Kim-Chi.