Birth date: September 23, 1952
Activity: Blogger
Date of arrest: April 19, 2008
Sentence: Sentenced to 2.5 years imprisonment on September 10, 2008; detention period extended without trial
Charge: Tax evasion (Article 161)
Current location: Cai Tau Prison, Ca Mau Province
Writing under the pen name Dieu Cay (peasant’s water pipe), Nguyen Van Hai is one of Vietnam’s pioneering citizen journalists. Through his Yahoo360 blog, Dieu Cay exposed government corruption, called for freedom of expression and was among the first Vietnamese to criticize China’s annexation of the Paracel and Spratly Islands. He was arrested while calling for a boycott of the Beijing Olympic Torch Relay. Convicted originally for tax evasion, he remains in jail under new charges of anti-state propaganda.