Truong Huy San

February 2025:

Truong Huy San was found guilty of "abusing democratic freedoms" by a Hanoi court on Feb. 27 and sentenced to 30 months in prison. Better known as Huy Duc, the celebrated author of the non-fiction The Winning Side was accused of posting 13 videos that "infringe on the interests of the state" based on Art. 331. Prosecutors had asked for a three-year sentence and the court, after a short trial that lasted only a few hours, reduced it by six months to show "leniency" for the former senior army lieutenant. It is unknown if he will appeal his sentence. 

Earlier in February:

Author Truong Huy San, penname Huy Duc, detained since June 2024, has been indicted under Article 331 for "abusing democratic freedoms." According to state media, Huy Duc is accused of "impinging on the interests of the state" based on 13 articles he posted on Facebook. The indictment states that Huy Duc told investigators he performed his own research and gathered information for his articles independently. No trial date has been set.

PEN America this week called for his release, saying: "When an author and journalist like Truong Huy San is silenced, it’s not just his voice that is stifled—it’s the right of an entire society to seek truth and accountability."

Background

A well-connected and respected writer, Huy Duc is famous for his book “The Winning Side” (2012), which reveals alleged secrets about the Communist Party and many of its high-ranking members with whom he had deep professional and personal relationships. 

His two-volume historical exposé was published in the U.S. in 2012 while Huy Duc was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard; it is still banned in Vietnam. Since that time, Huy Duc has been using Facebook and YouTube to share his thoughts on social and political events in Vietnam and the world, attracting hundreds of thousands of followers. One of San’s final online posts before his arrest was critical of Vietnam’s new President, former police minister To Lam.

Read more about Huy Duc's long career in Vietnamese, here.

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"Không một người tự do nào lại chọn nhà tù. Nhưng trong một sô trường hợp, để bảo vệ quyền tự do, không thể tránh được nhà tù. Nếu mọi người đều tránh tù tội, chúng ta sẽ không bao giờ có được tự do."

"No free person would choose to be imprisoned. But in certain cases, in order to protect liberty, prison is unavoidable. If everyone chooses to avoid prison then we will never have freedom."

- Journalist Huy Duc, interviewed in Kensington, California, 2013