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Reactionary portraits: Bui Thanh Hieu - from a criminal to a political psycho

4/10/16

These recent days, especially on Monday after the authority suspended news website PetroTimes for three months, due to its’ violation of press regulations. The ministry of information and communication said the suspension had been proposed by the site’s owner, the Vietnam Petroleum Association. After three months, the ministry will review the case and decide if the site, which covers a wide range of topics, can be relaunched.
The ministry on Monday also decided to revoke the press card of PetroTimes’ editor-in-chief Nguyen Nhu Phong, who had already been sacked by the site’s owner.
 In this incident, people happened to hear about Bui Thanh Hieu (Bùi Thanh Hiếu in Vietnamese), a blogger also known as Nguoi Buon Gio (Wind Trader). So who is Bui Thanh Hieu? And how did he get involved in the PetroTimes suspension. This article would like to help you understand more about this case.
Bui Thanh Hieu was born in 1972,  originated from Hung Yen province but lived in Hanoi. His father and his younger brother were addicted to drugs, his older sister had record of being arrested for organizing prostitution in 2008 and released in 2011. Hieu got more lucks than his relatives, he married a wife who worked for Techcombank and gave birth to a good-looking boy for him.
His life in Vietnam was not quite smooth. After graduated from the high school, he went on military service in 1990 and returned in 1992. At home, he got no job and helped his mother to sell sidewalk drinks. He used to learn to be a carpenter, but soon he was found out to a drug addict. In 1994, Hieu was arrested and sentenced to years in prison for stocking and using drugs. Due to the State’s pardon policies, Hieu was released in 1997 and lived at Hoan Kiem district. But “old habits die hard”, once again Hieu was held custody for extorting and stocking illegal weapons. As that, it can be seen Hieu had a long time of being attached to drugs and laws violations, a dyed-in-the-wool criminal.
But not just that, after running out of ways to get money for drugs, Hieu started to write blogs on the Internet. At first, like many, he wrote to cry out for his life and blame for his bad lucks. For times, he encountered with extreme posts and information from hostile forces at home and abroad, Hieu began his path of becoming a political psycho. He got some fame after taking part to protests and posting against China on the South China Sea disputes. In these blog posts, he distorted and groundlessly criticized the Party and State of Vietnam for what he claimed to selling soil to China. While the Party and State have done everything possible to protect the country’s sovereignty, these individuals like him who have no knowledge about the real situation but have conducted many activities hurting the country’s interests and making situation more complicated in the name of patriotism.
 Morever, Hieu’s political psychopath exaggerated since he got contact with Viet Tan, a terrorist group, and its members, whom he may find more the same like him. With Viet Tan’s supports, Hieu left Vietnam and now lived exiled in Germany. There he finished Speaking in Silence which groundlessly accused the Vietnam’s authorities of restricting freedom of press and expression. Being incited and encouraged by these anti-State aggressive elements, Hieu became “Wind Trader” as we know. Why is “wind”? Maybe, because what he writes and says are so absurd and reasonless as winds. They are just like funny stories for leisure. Those go by and fall into oblivion as no one would believe. His blog posts just like “gone with the wind” as his pen-name, “wind trader”. Hieu also called for an international campaign for Dieu Cay, another psycho blogger like him, who arrested and charged for violating the Vietnam’s laws.
It’s a ironical that hostile forces and human rights organizations, for various purposes, raised him as a journalist fighting for press freedom and have even nominated him for human rights prizes like Hellman/Hammett in 2010 and so on, which even make him more psycho. His paranoia has gone much further recently. In the Yen Bai shooting incident in August, he absurdly imagined that offender Do Cuong Minh did not commit suicide but was killed by General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong. A paranoia even an imginative person would not think of. All that concretely prove a political psycho Hieu is.
Back to the case of PetroTimes, it’s not sure on purpose or not the website and its editor-in-chief Nguyen Nhu Phong posted the interview of Bui Thanh Hieu held by Thoibao.de, an online newspaper of German Vietnamese in Berlin. In the interview, as usual Hieu expressed his political psycho nature about Trinh Xuan Thanh incident, an internal affair of the Vietnam’s State, through his paranoia, Hieu suggested that this is a civil power conflict inside the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) and criticized the Party and State of Vietnam for abusing power. What a quite political psycho! 
It’s all known that Trinh Xuan Thanh is a corrupted official, who have been sacked and expelled from the CPV, and now wanted by the Vietnam police and Interpol. Hieu not just ignored that but also showed favor of Trinh Xuan Thanh as an accessory. It’s not clear why PetroTimes posted this interview on its website, and what were other faults of this e-newspaper that led to its’ suspension, everything is still under investigation. But, the move of posting an interview of a political psycho, that is known for his anti-State activities and links to terrorist groups Viet Tan like Bui Thanh Hieu, is a big mistake of the PetroTimes. What a pity for a e-newspaper which often published a lot of positive articles. It is a helpful lesson for other newspapers to step away from the PetroTimes’ mistake and recognize the true nature of a political psycho of “Wind Trader” Bui Thanh Hieu./.
Chia sẻ bài viết ^^
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All comments [ 11 ]


yobro yobro 4/10/16 17:58

Bui Thanh Hieu must be charged for what he did to hurt the country's interests and caused chaos at home.

Me Too! 4/10/16 18:01

I can not understand why the PetroTimes posted this rubbish interview, which just some unknown self-claimed newspapers did. So sorry!

For A Peace World 4/10/16 18:04

Let the Vietnamese government handle Trinh Xuan Thanh case, it's a internal affair.

Red Star 4/10/16 18:06

People should know more about psychos like Bui Thanh Hieu to keep away from their paranoia.

Vietnam Love 4/10/16 18:10

This is a warning for other Vietnamese newspapers to consider contents and rethink of their impacts on society before posting them.

Voice of people 4/10/16 18:24

What a "Wind Trader" or "Wind Blader"!

LawrenceSamuels 4/10/16 18:49

Bui Thanh Hieu should be sent to a mental hospital or a psychologist clinic to cure his paranoid imagination.

Gentle Moon 4/10/16 20:16

From a criminal to a political psycho, so weird that there is a newspaper interviewing him, and there is a stupid newspaper to post it again.

Socialist Society 4/10/16 20:19

Hieu should be cured and come back to the country to see the real situation in Vietnam.

John Smith 4/10/16 20:23

Agree with Pack Cassiopian. Vietnamese journalism now has many problems, from professional operation to moral occupation. How on earth an absurd blogger like Hieu can be claimed as a journalist!

Red Star 4/10/16 20:25

I think behind him is another forces, Hieu just like a puppet of Viet Tan and foreign hostile forces.

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