Huỳnh Thục Vy

Huỳnh Thục Vy (born 20 November 1985) is a Vietnamese journalist and democracy activist. She served a custodial prison sentence on charges of defacing a flag between 2021 and 2024.

Biography Vy is the daughter of journalist and former prisoner of conscience Huỳnh Ngọc Tuấn; her brother, Huỳnh Trọng Hiếu, is also an activist. The family have experienced persecution from Vietnamese authorities; Tuấn served a ten-year prison sentence during Vy's childhood, and Hiếu as an adult sought asylum in Thailand and subsequently Canada. Vy is married to activist Lê Khánh Duy, with whom she has two children. She lives in Buôn Hồ, Đắk Lắk province.

Vy worked as an independent blogger and journalist, initially writing on political, social, environmental and human rights issues for the online portal Đàn Chim Việt in 2008. Vy advocated for young people to participate in Vietnamese politics, and called for the country to adopt a system with democracy and pluralism. In July 2020, Vietnamese Women for Human Rights were declared a "reactionary force" by the Indoctrination Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam during a broadcast on National Defence Television. One of her co-founders was sentenced to nine years' imprisonment and was exiled to the United States. Vy was the mother of a two-year-old child at the time and pregnant, and was ordered to begin serving her sentence under house arrest until her youngest child turned three. While under house arrest on 19 July 2020, Vy was assaulted by security staff when leaving her home to attend church. In February 2022, Vy was transferred to Gia Trung prison in Gia Lai province, around 200 kilometres from her home in Buôn Hồ.