Đoàn Viết Hoạt (born 24 December 1942) is a Vietnamese journalist, educator, and democratic activist who was repeatedly imprisoned for his criticisms of Vietnam's Communist leadership.
[2] Hoạt was detained the following year in a mass round-up of intellectuals with United States ties,[1] on the grounds that though he might not be a CIA agent at the moment, he could "become one at any time.
"[3] Over the next year, Dien Dan Tu Do published three more issues, which were circulated clandestinely throughout Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City.
[4] In 1992, he was denounced by the government-controlled newspaper Sài Gòn Giải Phóng as the leader of a "reactionary group" and accused of plotting rebellion.
[5] Amnesty International protested the conditions of his trial, named him a prisoner of conscience, and called for his immediate release,[5] as did The Committee to Protect Journalists[7] and the World Association of Newspapers.
[9] Finally Hoạt was placed in solitary confinement in the comparatively remote Thanh Cam prison in the country's north; in 1997, Amnesty International reported him to be under severe psychological stress as a result of his isolation.
[11] The United States agreed to grant him citizenship, and seven days later, he rejoined his family at the Los Angeles International Airport, where he was greeted by a crowd of more than one hundred well-wishers.
In 1993, he won the International Press Freedom Award of the Committee to Protect Journalists,[13] "an annual recognition of courageous journalism".
[4] He currently holds the post of scholar-in-residence at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.,[17] and continues to speak and write in favor of democratic reform in Vietnam.