On the evening of May 21, Việt Nam time, Vietnamese citizen Tiêu Nguyễn Bảo Ngọc, also known as Bảo Ngọc Ashley, made an unexpected appearance and delivered remarks at an event in Istanbul, Turkey. The event, titled “Participants Arrival,” was livestreamed on the Global Sumud Flotilla’s (GSF) YouTube channel.
The latest: Bảo Ngọc Ashley’s appearance occurred after nearly four days during which she was believed to have been detained and out of contact in international waters while serving as a crew member on the Barbarous, one of nine GSF vessels participating in an aid mission to the Gaza Strip in Palestine. The GSF fanpage announced the press conference almost simultaneously with the livestream.
The details: Speaking at the event alongside other crew members, Bảo Ngọc stated, “After this interception, I realized that the level of violence is only getting worse. But it also shows how desperate [Israel] is. The desperation is extremely high. They did everything they could to stop us.”
She further declared, “I would rather die than live in a reality where genocide and the illegal blockade of Gaza continue to exist. And I know my ancestors, who fought for the freedom of my country, would rather see me dead than see me fail to act and break the illegal siege of Gaza.”
She concluded her remarks by stating, “And I want to reaffirm once again: they should kill us, because otherwise, we will enter Gaza.”
The background: Bảo Ngọc, born in 1998, has stated that she is studying sociology at the University of Oslo in Norway and previously worked as a teacher in Việt Nam. She is a co-founder of VietforPalestine, one of the first pro-Palestine pages in Việt Nam.
She became a major topic of discussion on social media following reports that she was detained by the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) on the evening of May 18. She became the first and only Vietnamese person to join the GSF flotilla to Gaza. It remains unverified what exactly happened to the Barbarous during the three days it was out of contact.
When the incident first occurred, Vietnamese state media reported on the case but did not initially mention that a Vietnamese citizen had been detained. Two days after her reported detention, the Vietnamese Embassy in Israel announced it was “verifying information” and “carrying out consular protection” for her. On that same day, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir posted a video showing Israeli security forces restraining international activists detained during the flotilla interception.
Why it matters: In a previous video interview with the Indonesian news outlet Republika, Bảo Ngọc explained her dual motivations for joining the flotilla: she feels intense empathy for Palestinians because Vietnamese people have endured similar pain and war crimes inflicted by Western imperial powers, especially the United States; and she believes the Global Sumud Flotilla is an effective strategy to break the blockade of Gaza, end the genocide, and expose the complicity of governments worldwide. Her actions and subsequent detention have divided social media users in Việt Nam. One side called on the authorities to rescue her, while the opposing side argued that the state had previously advised citizens not to travel to conflict zones and should not be held responsible for a citizen’s voluntary actions. Some accounts even claimed that calling on the government to rescue Bảo Ngọc amounted to inciting public opinion.
Hoàng Nam wrote this article in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on May 22, 2026. The Vietnamese Magazine has the copyrights of the English translation.
