Tran Vu Linh
Trần Vũ Linh
Detainment Type: At risk
Other Names: Trần Vũ Linh, Nam Khánh, Lucas
Date of Birth: September 5, 1992
Gender: M
Religion: Buddhist
Ethnicity: Kinh
Occupation: Service industry
Activist Focus:
- Democracy
- Freedom of expression
- Human rights
- Press
Organizational/Political Party Affiliation:
Details
Background
Tran Vu Linh, commonly known as Nam Khánh and Lucas, is a pro-democracy activist who works to promote basic rights in Vietnam by running human rights training courses online and engaging in publishing activities.
In 2019, due to his courageous activism and contribution to the democracy movement in Vietnam, Linh was granted an internship at the office of Chris Hayes, a member of the Parliament in Australia.
History of ActivismLinh has been involved in activism since 2018 as a teaching assistant and then an administrator of Canh En Viet (CEV), an underground CSO providing free online training courses for Vietnamese activists. The topics of those courses included but were not limited to politics, democracy, and methods of strategic nonviolent resistance.
On February 14, 2019, he co-founded the Liberal Publishing House (Nhà xuất bản Tự Do) with Pham Doan Trang and other activists in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
With the aim to promote freedom of publication in Vietnam, the Liberal Publishing House published books in print and distributed them via their network of supporters. The group represented the manifestation of the resistance spirit against the dictatorship in Vietnam.
On June 3, 2020, after less than 16 months of operation, the Liberal Publishing House won the International Publishers Association‘s (IPA) Prix Voltaire, joining “some of the world’s most honored efforts in courageous publishing,” per Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief of the Publishing Perspectives.
Linh on July 10, 2020 formally resigned from Liberal Publishing House due to the harassment and increased pressure from security police against him, his colleagues, and his family.
Family SituationLinh is the only child of a single parent with his mother and grandmother.
July 1, 2019: bank accounts frozen because of association with the Liberal Publishing House
Before Tran Vu Linh left Vietnam in February 2019 to join overseas human rights and democracy training courses, he handed over three of his bank accounts (Vietcombank, VP Bank, Eximbank, and his SIM cards associated with the accounts) to the co-founders of the Liberal Publishing House.
In the summer of 2019, his accounts were reportedly frozen; the likely reason was that these bank accounts were affiliated with the Liberal Publishing House’s online publications. Linh and the co-founders contacted the banks and were told that they would double-check on the issue and reply later; they never did. Due to security concerns, and as Linh was overseas at that time, the Liberal Publishing House had no other options and could not reactivate those bank accounts.
The incident involving his bank accounts reportedly led to a further escalation in harassment against Linh and his family members, as Linh told The 88 Project. Linh has been informally accused of conducting propaganda against the State, and he has been pressured by local authorities via his family members to get him to return to Vietnam. His family has also been subjected to intimidation, police summons, workplace discrimination, dismissal (his mother was fired from differrent jobs five times since 2020), and identification card denial (for six relatives who share the household book with Linh).
Profile last updated: 2024-06-13 20:34:07