January 19, 2022: Pham Doan Trang has been named as one of the three laureates of the 2022 Martin Ennals Award today in Geneva, Switzerland. This year, the Martin Ennals Award recognized three laureates, Pham Doan Trang, Dr. Daouda Diallo (Burkina Faso), and Abdul-Hadi Al-Khawaja (Bahrain), celebrating three galvanizers of the human rights movement.

The Martin Ennals Foundation states that “Pham Doan Trang is a leading journalist, editor and democracy advocate in Vietnam, where the Communist Party has left little room for opposition voices to flourish. She directed several independent media outlets to raise awareness amongst Vietnam’s citizens of their fundamental rights galvanising many other journalists and human rights defenders to speak up. She was one of the most hunted activists in her country before being arrested in October 2020. On 14 December 2021, Pham Doan Trang was sentenced to nine years in prison for ‘conducting propaganda against the state’. There are growing concerns about her health.”