Interview by Đoàn Bảo Châu, October 17, 2026. Edited for length and clarity.
Nguyễn Đức Thuận, a Norwegian citizen; Trần Hiệp, an Australian citizen; and Thái Công Trường Sơn disappeared in Cambodia on Sept. 18, 2026. Ten days later, Việt Nam announced it was holding them on terrorism charges. Đoàn Bảo Châu spoke with Phil Robertson, director of Asia Human Rights and Labour Advocates in Bangkok, who has worked for almost 20 years to protect activists hunted across borders in Asia.
Đoàn Bảo Châu: Diplomats have finally seen Thuận and Hiệp. Reports say Hiệp told his family he never crossed the border and that he is traumatized and terrified. What did we learn from these visits?
Phil Robertson: The Vietnamese government finally granted consular access to Australia and Norway. This should have happened right away, but it took almost a month. We will probably hear very little from the diplomats, because they always say there are privacy concerns. But the important thing is that information is getting out that they did not cross the border voluntarily. This is coming directly from the men.
It points to transnational repression by the Vietnamese authorities in Cambodia: some sort of arrangement to snatch or abduct people. It is similar to what we saw in Thailand in 2023 with Đường Văn Thái, who was abducted off the streets of Pathum Thani province, just north of Bangkok.
It is very clear that the Vietnamese government not only has the capacity to do this but also the political will. All they need is a willing partner, and in Cambodia they have that. Hun Sen basically rode back into Cambodia on the front of a Vietnamese tank in 1979. He has had close relationships with the Vietnamese Communist Party for decades. If the Vietnamese government asked Cambodian officials for help to track down these three men, I expect they received it.
Why did Hà Nội allow the visits now? Was it pressure?
Certainly pressure from Australia and Norway. Consular access is a norm around the world. I don’t expect the visits to happen regularly. The Vietnamese government will try to limit them as much as possible.
It may also be connected to the EFTA free trade agreement that Việt Nam is signing tomorrow with four European states that are not in the European Union. I expect Norway was pressuring Việt Nam to allow access before its senior official arrived in Hà Nội for the signing. That is the kind of pressure the Vietnamese authorities respond to when they could lose something.
But let’s be clear: This should have happened in the first days after they were detained, not a month later. The Vietnamese government has been dragging its feet.
Unfortunately, the Vietnamese government views Vietnamese people anywhere in the world as under its control. Even if they hold another citizenship, Việt Nam considers them its citizens, to whom it can do whatever it wants. That is not the way the world should work. But that is how the Vietnamese Communist Party thinks.
Why did it take almost a month when Việt Nam has signed on to this norm?
The Vietnamese authorities treat access to relatives, lawyers, or foreign diplomats as something voluntary on their part. When police arrest someone, there is an investigation phase, and Vietnamese law says the authorities do not have to give access to family or lawyers during that period.
We have also seen that the investigation period is when torture of activists or detainees happens most often, because the police are trying to extract a confession. When I was at Human Rights Watch, in 2014 we published a report called Public Insecurity about deaths in police custody in Việt Nam. The Ministry of Public Security views the investigation period as their period. No one gets access. I am sure that mindset is at work with these three men.
There was probably pressure not only from these two governments but from others too: “Come on, these are foreign citizens; they deserve consular visits.” So they finally relented. But I predict access will be sporadic, not regular.
Some Vietnamese readers may find it hard to believe that the police torture people. Can you say more?
There is a consistent pattern of torture and deaths in custody. The Vietnamese police have a long record of this, and it is connected to the way they investigate crimes. Their methods are remarkably unsophisticated: interrogation and abusive interrogation, including torture. The idea is to extract a confession and take it to the prosecutors. Police are effectively rewarded for extracting confessions.
The Vietnamese government denies this, but they are lying. The Ministry of Public Security and the police torture people on a regular basis. It is not even a disputed fact.
Do you have evidence?
There are plenty of testimonies from people tortured in custody. We did a whole report in 2014. I tend to believe the people over the Vietnamese government. And it is not only human rights activists. We have cases of young people out on a joyride on their motorbikes who passed a police checkpoint. The police chased them down, beat them, took them to the station, and they ended up crippled or dead.
Here is something interesting. For several years, before Tô Lâm became dominant, there was cooperation between the University of Oslo, the Norwegian police, and Việt Nam’s Ministry of Public Security. It was a pilot project on how to help the Vietnamese police do modern investigations, collecting evidence instead of catching someone and beating them until they confess. Norwegian police went to Việt Nam to explain their interrogation techniques, and parts of the ministry were open to reform. Once Tô Lâm and the hardliners came in, that cooperation went out the window. But what the Norwegians learned showed a systemic problem with torture in the criminal investigation phase.
The person most vulnerable to this kind of abuse right now is the man without foreign citizenship.
On the idea that Việt Nam “still owns” Vietnamese abroad, what do you think?
We have just seen people tried in absentia by Việt Nam who are citizens of other countries. Even if you leave and become a citizen of another country, they believe they still own you. The only other country I know that does this so pervasively is China. I know Vietnamese people don’t like being compared to China, but the two governments act very similarly.
The two communist parties remain close despite the disputes over the Paracel and Spratly Islands and the anti-China riots. Việt Nam’s Ministry of Public Security has a close working relationship with China’s Ministry of Public Security. Many Westerners don’t understand this.
Việt Nam has signed UN human rights agreements. Why doesn’t it follow them?
Việt Nam signs international agreements because it thinks they make it look better. Even after ratifying the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, they say, “We are not violating human rights, because everything we do follows Vietnamese law.” But Vietnamese law has provisions that violate those agreements, and they don’t care about that contradiction. That is the simplistic world of the Ministry of Public Security: whatever we say is correct, and nobody can question us.
Why doesn’t the international community do more?
Because it is so eager to trade with Việt Nam that it overlooks human rights abuses. It makes me very angry. Norway’s senior minister is probably in Hà Nội right now for tomorrow’s signing. Tô Lâm has been visiting Denmark and the EU headquarters in Belgium, and doing deals with Canada. Because of Donald Trump’s tariffs, leaders like Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney say: “To survive, we must diversify our trade.” So they go to Việt Nam. The UK does the same after Brexit.
The Vietnamese government is eager for trade deals, but it will not accept any link between trade and human rights. And these governments are willing to look the other way.
For Vietnamese activists in prison for 6, 8, 10, 12 years, the international community is not really taking up their cases. In the past decade, Tô Lâm has wiped out the brave activists we used to see.
Is the UN human rights office too weak?
The UN human rights office for Southeast Asia in Bangkok faces huge problems with Việt Nam. Việt Nam doesn’t want them to visit, so they fight for visas, and they are not allowed to have staff based in Việt Nam. The closest thing is the UN Development Programme, which does harmless technical training, like helping the Foreign Ministry prepare for its Universal Periodic Review. No one in the UN country team wants to stand up for political prisoners. They have become very cautious.
Meanwhile, Việt Nam keeps getting elected to the Human Rights Council. It wants to be there to block action on Việt Nam and on allies like Russia, China and North Korea. Việt Nam is a bad apple at the Council. And it is elected by governments that want trade deals with Việt Nam. It is a circle of bad influence.
What can be done?
First, the Vietnamese diaspora must stand together against transnational repression. People in Norway must tell their government to get tough. People in Australia must do the same. Otherwise these men will be held for years and face a show trial. Châu Văn Khảm was sentenced to 12 years and held for four and a half years before Prime Minister Albanese flew to Việt Nam and got him out. That is the future for these three men unless there is major pressure, including Vietnamese around the world saying, “This is outrageous, and we will not accept the Vietnamese government terrorizing us where we live.”
Second, human rights groups and like-minded governments need a coordinated effort, recognizing that the human rights situation in Việt Nam is going the wrong way. Groups like Amnesty and Human Rights Watch should make Việt Nam a priority country.
Third, link rights to economic benefits. Look at labor rights. Việt Nam promised to allow independent unions in its 2019 labour law revision, but the implementing regulations were never passed, five or six years later. The European Union should take that up under its free trade agreement. Trade deals must benefit the people of Việt Nam, not just companies.
You have worked in this field for more than 20 years. How does Việt Nam today compare with 10 or 20 years ago?
The human rights and political reform movement in Việt Nam has been destroyed. People who stood up for the environment, freedom of religion, or their land were able to organize for a while. But since 2016 and 2017, the international consensus on pressuring Việt Nam has dissipated.
Under the Obama administration, during the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks, Việt Nam was convinced that without concessions on human rights and labor rights, Congress would drop it from the TPP. So Việt Nam made concessions. When Donald Trump tore up the TPP, all American leverage went out the window. Việt Nam’s leadership visited the White House soon after Trump took office and no one raised human rights. They learned they could be hardline on rights and still get the trade deals they wanted.
With the rise of Tô Lâm and the Ministry of Public Security, that hardline approach became the government’s main way of dealing with its people. Dissidents get longer and longer sentences. Their relatives face attacks. No one can even make fun of the government: look at “Green Onion Bae,” in prison after his funny imitation of Tô Lâm’s gold-crusted steak at Salt Bae’s restaurant. Environmentalists were jailed on tax charges or forced into exile. Even the LGBTQ movement has gone silent. Everybody is scared. This is the new reality.
How does Việt Nam compare with China?
Very similar. Xi Jinping wiped out civil society, environmental lawyers, and reformers and turned the Chinese Communist Party hardline. The same has happened in Việt Nam. The one big difference is that China controls the internet with the Great Firewall, and Việt Nam could not. Now Việt Nam has a new decree on social media. At the launch of Meta’s new human rights report, they said clearly that Việt Nam is pushing them very hard to take down content. Ten years ago Meta fought back. Now they just take it down.
I don’t want to be too grim. Vietnamese people are very effective and astute organizers, with great perseverance and toughness. Right now they are not getting much help from the international community, and that is partly on us. We have to do more.
I worked simply as a journalist. I asked questions. I did not make anything up. Yet Việt Nam sentenced me to 7 years in prison in absentia. The government says groups like yours have a wrong view of Việt Nam. How can we make this better when human rights groups also struggle financially?
I am very sad about what was done to you and to other independent journalists in Việt Nam. The people of Việt Nam deserve the truth. There is a lot of corruption and shady deals between crony capitalists and the party. Corruption is the enemy of development. Independent journalists who report what they find are a benefit to society.
The government of Việt Nam doesn’t want any narrative except the one it controls. In that, it is very similar to Xi Jinping: my way or the highway. They even targeted a BBC Vietnamese journalist, whom I won’t name publicly, because they didn’t like the BBC’s reporting. That is why they pursue independent journalists. That is why they chased you out. And now on Facebook, if you challenge the party, Facebook suddenly gets an order to block you.
When a government faces criticism, it can learn and fix its system or kill the voice and pretend nothing happened.
Shoot the messenger. I agree. At Human Rights Watch I always said: “You should thank these people for bringing corruption and misgovernance to your attention. They are whistleblowers.” That fell on deaf ears. Worse, they mobilized local groups and veterans to physically attack dissidents, beat them, throw rotten fish into their houses. The party doesn’t want to listen. It expects blind obedience. Everybody knows what the problems are, but efforts to reform are treated as crimes.
Thuận is diabetic. Reports say he gets pills, not insulin, and he also has kidney problems. Is this neglect or a way to pressure him?
Probably a bit of both. This really comes down to the Norwegians. They have to be very assertive, including publicly. I would argue that the family should be able to appoint a doctor with regular access to give him the necessary medicine. International human rights law is clear: when someone is detained, the government is responsible for their medical treatment.
If the report is true, this is neglect. You would think Việt Nam would not want him to die or get very sick in custody, because that would make them look bad. Apparently that is not the case, at least now. If Norway does not get satisfaction privately, it must be prepared to say publicly: we fear for our national, he is not getting proper medical treatment. Việt Nam won’t like that. So be it. This man’s life is at stake.
Reports say Thuận cannot see a lawyer until the investigation ends, which can last up to 2 years.
Norway and Australia should demand access to a lawyer. Usually, a criminal investigation does not last 2 years. It may be 3 or 4 months, and access to a lawyer may come toward the end. They should have a lawyer from the beginning, but that is never how it is done in Việt Nam.
This is all leading to a trial that will be neither free nor fair, before a court that is not independent from the government or the party. These are kangaroo courts. The verdict is decided before the hearing opens. They are show trials, used to claim Việt Nam has rule of law. But Vietnamese law does not comply with the UN human rights treaties Việt Nam has ratified.
Thái Công Trường Sơn has no foreign passport and got no visit. Who protects him?
We have to mention him every time we talk about this case. It cannot be only the two men with foreign passports. The bottom line is that he is in serious trouble. They will throw the book at him and treat him harshly. I hope Australia or Norway might speak for him too, but I have my doubts; they will focus on their consular responsibilities. So yes, he is the most vulnerable of the three.
You told ABC this arrest is absurd and unacceptable and that it was an abduction, even before the men spoke. Why were you so sure? And has transnational repression grown under Tô Lâm?
Yes, it has certainly grown under Tô Lâm. There is no doubt.
Talking to the relatives, the circumstances of the claimed border crossing did not add up. Given the close relationship between the Cambodian People’s Party and the Vietnamese Communist Party, if Việt Nam asked Cambodia for help with monitoring, surveillance, or tracking, it would have received it.
I was directly involved in investigating the disappearance of Đường Văn Thái in Thailand. I saw a video of him being abducted and forced into a car. A Thai military intelligence official showed it to me. The Thais investigated because it was not authorized: the Vietnamese did not ask the Thai government; they just did it. That shows boldness. The Thais even found the Thai driver involved, who told everything.
It shows Việt Nam has the capacity and political will to run these operations in neighboring countries. They did it in Thailand, where the relationship is not as close as with Cambodia. And these activists went close to the Việt Nam–Cambodia border. They went too close to the dragon, so to speak. Vietnamese operatives go back and forth across that border.
My personal belief is that the abduction was probably done by the Vietnamese. They don’t need the Cambodians to abduct people. They only need the Cambodians to track them and keep the Vietnamese side updated until the abduction takes place.
Vietnamese police say Thuận carried fake ID cards but also his real Norwegian passport. Does that make sense?
No. Look at Đường Văn Thái again. He was taken in Pathum Thani, driven to Nong Khai on the border, then to Bueng Kan, and across into Laos. A few days later, Việt Nam said: he crossed into Hà Tĩnh, and we detained him; he was carrying fake documents. That is their standard lie when they bring people back through transnational repression. Later we saw his arrest warrant, and it listed his address in Thailand. Even Việt Nam’s own documents show they took him in Thailand.
They don’t care. They will say a man with a Norwegian passport, who doesn’t even need a visa for Việt Nam, crossed illegally with fake documents. They throw this at Norway and Australia, and unfortunately diplomats say, “We don’t really know, so it might be true.” It is all to prevent effective intervention for these men. I don’t believe any of it.
In September you called Hà Nội the most vicious practitioner of transnational repression in Southeast Asia. Is this a new line crossed? And how does the “swap market” work?
Yes, a new line has been crossed: the abduction of foreign nationals in a third country. Châu Văn Khảm, the Australian arrested before, did state that he crossed the border into Việt Nam. That is different from someone being grabbed in Cambodia.
The term “swap market” came from Thailand under the military regime. The Thai government made arrangements: you want dissidents who fled to our country? We can do this, but you owe us a favor, or you pay, or you send back people we want. We saw it with China, Việt Nam, Cambodia, and Laos. In one case, a Cambodian man was arrested in front of the Dutch embassy and quickly sent back, and a day later a Thai “black shirt” who had fled to Cambodia appeared at the border and was sent across. A literal swap. Both sides deny it. Behind this are secret agreements, including one between Thailand and Việt Nam on the extradition of nationals that we have never seen.
That is part of what drove the effort to get Y Quỳnh B’Đăp back. Việt Nam wanted him, the Thai government talked to prosecutors and judges, and he was sent back, even though he is clearly a refugee with a well-founded fear of persecution, and even though it violated Thailand’s own law on enforced disappearance.
The cases of Trương Duy Nhất and Đường Văn Thái were different?
Yes. With Đường Văn Thái, the Thai government was not involved. With Trương Duy Nhất, they were. He was detained at a shopping mall. The Thai police took him out to dinner while they waited for the Vietnamese to come and get him. A last meal in freedom before they handed him over. That was a swap market arrangement.
Châu Văn Khảm came home after 4 years of lobbying. Is that the realistic path, or can it be faster? And are other governments, like Canada, doing enough?
I think there will certainly be a trial, and they will probably get long sentences. Việt Nam already says Việt Tân is a terrorist organization and claims they were involved in terrorism. It depends on whether Australia and Norway are really prepared to fight.
Other governments won’t get involved unless Australia and Norway invite them. Canada, the US, Germany, France will ask for a briefing and offer help, but by diplomatic courtesy they let the other country take the lead.
The problem is that Australia’s approach is always softly, softly, quietly, quietly. They don’t pressure governments the way they need to. Norway may feel it has little influence and is trying to do trade deals. But Norway should be prepared to go public if its national is not getting proper treatment for his diabetes. This is life and death. If you play tough with the Vietnamese, you get more respect.
I have argued with Australian diplomats about this many times. They never want to go public. I tell them, “You are getting nowhere, you get bullied by governments like Việt Nam and Cambodia.” Look at James Ricketson, an Australian detained in Cambodia and accused of being a spy for flying a drone over a protest rally. Even then Australia couldn’t stand up. So this is where I get very vocal. The Cambodian and Vietnamese governments don’t like it. Tough. If governments won’t speak out, I will.
Việt Nam labels Việt Tân a terrorist organization, so any member can be labeled a terrorist.
That is their thinking. But it doesn’t mean these people are terrorists. That’s crazy. Most people recognize there is no substance to these terrorism allegations. Việt Nam just builds its charges to put them in prison, and calling them terrorists makes it easier. We have also heard that the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism is writing to the Vietnamese government that this violates international human rights law. So there will be pushback from the UN, though I don’t think Vietnam cares much.
I think they do this to scare activists away from joining Việt Tân and to fool readers inside Việt Nam. But this time they misjudged. Norway and Australia will fight, and the lie will be exposed.
I think that’s right. When I spoke with people involved in this case about strategy, I said: “You need to raise pressure on politicians in Norway and Australia. The solution will come only when Việt Nam feels its relationships with these governments are at risk. Otherwise it is a kangaroo court. The judge will read whatever verdict he is told to read.”
So the only way to deal with this is through politics and political pressure from Australia and Norway. They should advocate actively for their nationals, be ready to speak out publicly, and ask other governments to raise the case in Hà Nội too, so Việt Nam sees it cannot divide and rule the international community and that everybody is on board to get these men free.
Thank you, Phil. For me this is personal.
You are a victim of transnational repression as well, my friend. Thank you for having me. I hope this helps people understand what is going on.
