Vietnam arrested Pham Doan Trang on October 7, 2020, and charged her under Article 88 of its 1999 Penal Code for allegedly “making, storing, distributing or disseminating information, documents, and items against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.” Her trial was originally scheduled to take place on November 4, 2021, but the court postponed her trial due to the prosecutors having come into contact with COVID-19.

However, on October 25, 2021, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD), a team of five independent experts tasked with investigating “cases of deprivation of liberty imposed arbitrarily or inconsistently with the international standards set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” released their opinions regarding the arrest, detention, and treatment by the Vietnamese state of internationally recognized independent journalist and human rights defender Pham Doan Trang.