Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh

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Nguyễn Ngọc Như Quỳnh

Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh , also known as Mẹ Nấm , ( German mother Nấms ; Vietnamese Nguyễn Ngọc Như Quỳnh ; * 1979 , Nha Trang , Khánh Hòa , Vietnam ) is a Vietnamese blogger and activist . For her commitment to environmental protection and human rights in her home country, she received the “ International Women of Courage Award ” (IWOC) from the United States Department of State in 2017 .

Commitment and honors

Until her expatriation, Nguyễn was one of the best-known independent bloggers in Vietnam. As the mother of a young daughter who was nicknamed Nấm ( German  mushroom ), she started blogging as Mẹ Nấm (mother mushroom) in 2006 in order to exchange ideas with other mothers. In her posts she soon turned to topics such as social problems, government mismanagement, and environmental pollution . Nguyễn co-founded an independent network of Vietnamese bloggers that advocates freedom of the press and encourages its members to " protect people's rights and freedoms from restrictions and censorship ". She received a Hellman Hammett Award from Human Rights Watch (HRW) in 2010 .

Nguyễn wrote on her blog, other online news platforms and on Facebook . She covered sensitive issues censored by the state-controlled media, including official land grabbing, environmental degradation and police brutality. Most recently, she was heavily involved in the fight to defend the rights of fishermen and farmers in central Vietnam, who were hit by an environmental disaster caused by industrial waste. Nguyễn criticized, among other things, the inaction of the government agencies regarding the pollution caused by large companies. She also worked on behalf of political prisoners and their families.

Nguyễn was frequently harassed by the Vietnamese authorities before she was arrested. The local police repeatedly called her for questioning and temporarily detained her in connection with her online publications. In December 2013, the authorities prohibited her from traveling abroad. The following year, she expressed fears that she might be arrested and detained. Often she went out in disguise to avoid official surveillance.

The Swedish non-governmental organization Civil Rights Defenders (until 2009 the Swedish Helsinki Committee) named Nguyễn as " Civil Rights Defender of the Year 2015". However, she could not travel to Sweden because she did not receive a passport. She was arrested on October 10, 2016 on charges of "propaganda against the state" and was out of contact for several months. Bärbel Kofler , the federal government's human rights commissioner , demanded her release the following day.

In March 2017 Nguyễn was the second Vietnamese woman to receive the “International Women of Courage Award”. Among the 13 winners of the year were women from Bangladesh , Syria and Peru . The award was presented to them on March 29, 2017 by Secretary of State Thomas A. Shannon and Melania Trump . There was no connection to Nguyễn since October 2016.

After a one-day trial, Nguyễn was sentenced to ten years in prison in June 2017 for defamation of the regime and propaganda against the state. The prosecution charged her with 18 articles published online, in which she reported, for example, industrial pollution that devastated large areas of the country's coastline. According to investigations by the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ), convictions under Article 88 of the Vietnamese Criminal Code are often used to silence dissidents . In prison, the authorities refused to give Nguyon medical treatment. She was taken to a facility far from her home province, which made it difficult for her family to visit. According to her mother's reports, she went on a week-long hunger strike in May 2018 to protest poor detention conditions.

Nguyễn was released in October 2018 and was allowed to travel to the United States with her family . She received the International Press Freedom Award from the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ) on November 20, 2018

Web links

Commons : Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Nguyễn was active on blogs and Facebook as Me Nam or Mother Mushroom .
  2. ↑ U.S. Department of State: 2017 International Women of Courage Award. (English, accessed June 30, 2020)
  3. ↑ cpj.org: 2018 International Press Freedom Awards. (English, accessed June 30, 2020)
personal data
SURNAME Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mẹ Nấm (pseudonym); Nguyễn Ngọc Như Quỳnh (Vietnamese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Vietnamese blogger, activist and dissident
DATE OF BIRTH 1979
PLACE OF BIRTH Nha Trang , Khánh Hòa , Vietnam