Nguyễn Văn Hải

Nguyễn Văn Hải (born c. 1952; also known as Nguyễn Hoàng Hải), better known by his pen name Điếu Cày, is a Vietnamese blogger who has been prosecuted by the government of Vietnam for tax evasion and "disseminating anti-state information and materials". His imprisonment was protested by several international human rights organizations, and Amnesty International considers him a prisoner of conscience. He is a founding member of the Club for Free Journalists, created in September 2007. In 2008, he participated in On 5 July 2011, Duong Thi Tan was informed that Nguyễn Văn Hải had lost one of his arms due to an injury sustained in prison. In April, Civil Rights Defenders named him its Human Rights Defender of the Month. On 17 April, a US State Department spokeswoman called on Vietnam to release Nguyễn Văn Hải and the other bloggers, stating that the three had "done nothing more than exercise their universally recognized rights to freedom of expression". U.S. President Barack Obama said in May 2012 that "we must not forget journalists like blogger Dieu Cay, whose 2008 arrest coincided with a mass crackdown on citizen journalism in Vietnam"

Trial and sentence In September 2012, in a one-day trial of three dissidents including Ta Phong Tan and Phan Thanh Hải, Nguyễn Văn Hải received the harshest sentence of twelve years in prison. The Economist described the session as looking "very much like an old-fashioned Soviet-style show trial".

Nguyễn Văn Hải's former wife, Duong Thi Tan, stated that police detained her and her son for several hours to prevent them from attending the trial.

Release On 21 October 2014, Hải was released by the Vietnamese authorities and sent to the United States.