The cell keeps her body. The shelf keeps her name.
On October 6, 2020, after a US-Vietnam human rights call, police in Ho Chi Minh City arrested journalist Phạm Đoan Trang. Six years next week.
Nine years, for “conducting propaganda against the State.” One-day trial; appeal denied. In late 2022 she was moved nearly 1,000 miles from the mother now too old to visit. At the first family visit in two years they brought her guitar and slippers. Her feet were too swollen to wear them.
The quieter they make her, the more others say her name.
On September 30, in New York, the Vaclav Havel Center gives her its Disturbing the Peace Award. She will not be in the room. PEN's Salil Tripathi said her words “carry further than the walls meant to contain them.”
An award like that is an unofficial keeping-place. No treaty compels it. A handful of people decide, out loud, to say a name. This year, hers.
Trang wrote three books you can be jailed for owning in Vietnam. One is called Non-Violent Opposition. A state that fears a handbook on non-violence has told you what it is.
They can take the body. They only take the name if we agree to stop saying it. The cell is silent. The shelf keeps talking.
October 6 is six years. Say her name.