Bùi Thanh Hiếu (born February 6, 1972) is a

Vietnamese Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overseas Vietnamese, Vietnamese people living outside Vietna ...

human rights activist and

blogger A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

under the username Người Buôn Gió. (). In 2009, Bùi was detained for ten days by the

Vietnamese government The Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (; less formally the Vietnamese Government or the Government of Vietnam, ) is the cabinet and the central executive arm of the state administration of Vietnam. The members of the Governmen ...

for "abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the State." As of 2021 he lives in exile in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

with his son.

Early life

Bùi Thanh Hiếu was born in 1972 in a small alley in the

Đồng Xuân Market Đồng Xuân Market (; chữ Nôm: 𢄂同春) is a market in the center district Hoàn Kiếm of Hanoi, Vietnam. Originally built by the French administration in 1889, Đồng Xuân Market has been renovated several times with the latest b ...

Hanoi Hanoi ( ; ; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Vietnam, second-most populous city of Vietnam. The name "Hanoi" translates to "inside the river" (Hanoi is bordered by the Red River (Asia), Red and Black River (Asia), Black Riv ...

, in an area he called "the street of life, a place containing many elements of Gypsy, Mafia". Growing up Bùi had a rough life, earning money to live through theft, gambling, and collecting debt for rent.

Blogging career

In 2005, after noticing

corruption Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense that is undertaken by a person or an organization that is entrusted in a position of authority to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's gain. Corruption may involve activities ...

in the hospital where his wife gave birth, he began seeing it as a persistent problem in society. He started his blog hoping to contribute to bettering the lives of his children and of future generations. His writings have criticized territorial claims within China, as well as Vietnam's handling of land disputes with the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

, and advocated for democracy in Vietnam.

Arrest

In 2009, Bùi along with two other Vietnamese bloggers, were detained by the Vietnamese government for "abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the State." Hiếu distributed shirts which contained the phrase "Hoang Sa - Truong Sa belong to Vietnam." Hoang Sa refers to the

Paracel Islands The Paracel Islands, also known as the Xisha Islands () and the Hoàng Sa Archipelago (), are a disputed archipelago in the South China Sea and currently controlled by the People's Republic of China. The word ''paracel'' is of Portuguese origi ...

and Truong Sa refers to the

Spratly Islands The Spratly Islands (; zh, s=南沙群岛, t=南沙群島, p=Nánshā Qúndǎo; ; ) are a disputed archipelago in the South China Sea. Composed of islands, islets, cays, and more than 100 reefs, sometimes grouped in submerged old atoll ...

Exile to Germany

In 2010, his writings were translated into

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

and he was awarded a full scholarship from the

German government The Federal Government (, ; abbr. BReg) is the chief executive body of the Federal Republic of Germany and exercises executive power at the federal level. It consists of the Federal Chancellor and the Federal Ministers. The fundamentals o ...

in 2013. Hiếu was originally supposed to be in Germany for six months to study art. However he would end up staying there for years and continued to write about

Vietnamese politics The politics of Vietnam is dominated by a single party under an authoritarian system, the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV). The President of Vietnam ( Vietnamese: ) is the head of state, and the Prime Minister of Vietnam is the head of govern ...

on his Wind Trader blog and on

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

. In February 2020, Bùi announced he would stop producing the Wind Trader blog due to harassment of his family in Vietnam, including his 86 year old mother who at the time was in a Vietnamese hospital. In February 2021,

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...

reported that Hiếu was targeted by four

spyware Spyware (a portmanteau for spying software) is any malware that aims to gather information about a person or organization and send it to another entity in a way that harms the user by violating their privacy, endangering their device's securit ...

attacks by OceanLotus between February 2018 and December 2019.

Awards

In 2010, Bùi was awarded the Hellman-Hammett award by

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Headquartered in New York City, the group investigates and reports on issues including War crime, war crimes, crim ...

along with five other Vietnamese writers. The award is given to "writers around the world who are targets of

political repression Political repression is the act of a state entity controlling a citizenry by force for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing the citizenry's ability to take part in the political life of a society, thereby ...

or human rights violations."

References