Vietnam has detained Tran Hiep, a Melbourne-based Vietnamese-Australian democracy campaigner, on alleged terrorism offences and forging identity documents, The Guardian reported Monday. Hiep, a freelance IT worker who founded the Australian Alliance to Combat Human Trafficking, was uncontactable from mid-September; his wife Chloe Dang raised the alarm when he missed his flight from Phnom Penh on September 18 after meeting human rights defenders. After a fortnight of silence, Vietnam confirmed he is jailed awaiting trial in the B34 pre-trial detention centre in Ho Chi Minh City, noted for alleged abuses of political prisoners, where he spent his 51st birthday alone.
Hiep is accused of membership in Viet Tan, which Vietnam labels a terrorist group but which Human Rights Watch calls an opposition party lawful in countries including Australia. Vietnam says he was arrested crossing from Cambodia with a Norwegian passport-holder, Nguyen Duc Thuan; a third man, Thai Cong Truong Son, was also arrested. Cambodia denies involvement. His lawyer, Alison Battisson, calls it “transnational oppression,” an abduction from Cambodia violating international law, which both governments deny. Foreign Minister Penny Wong says she made personal representations but would be “careful what I say publicly.” The case echoes that of Chau Van Kham, a Vietnamese-born Australian jailed 12 years in 2019 on terrorism-financing charges and released in 2023.