Vietnamese activist brings Gaza debate into rare public view
Bao Ngoc’s Gaza flotilla detention drew unusual attention in Vietnam, where public political activism is tightly constrained.
By Lucas Ferreira · Science & Environment Writer
3 min read
A Vietnamese activist’s attempt to reach Gaza by sea has put the war there before a large domestic audience in Vietnam, where public political campaigns are tightly limited. Al Jazeera reported that Tieu Nguyen Bao Ngoc, a 28-year-old from Ho Chi Minh City, became a rare Vietnamese figure to gain broad visibility over a foreign political cause.
Bao Ngoc, also known as Ashley, was described by Al Jazeera as the first and only Vietnamese national known to have joined the Global Sumud Flotilla, an aid mission that sought to challenge Israel’s siege of Gaza. Two weeks before the flotilla set out across the Mediterranean in May, she announced that she would join the effort to reach the enclave, where Al Jazeera reported Israel has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians.
Her participation drew wide attention among young Vietnamese social media users, according to Al Jazeera. In an interview with Indonesia’s Republika Online from the vessel, Bao Ngoc said that as a Vietnamese person whose country had suffered from war crimes by Western imperial powers, especially the United States, she felt strong sympathy for Palestinians.
Those remarks spread widely online in Vietnam, Al Jazeera reported. Supporters posted messages and digital artwork and tracked the boat’s progress toward Gaza.
On May 18, the flotilla’s live tracker said the vessel carrying Bao Ngoc had been intercepted by Israeli forces in international waters west of Cyprus, according to Al Jazeera. A prerecorded emergency video later appeared on the flotilla’s website and then on Vietnamese social media, in which Bao Ngoc said she had been abducted by Israeli forces and asked people to urge Vietnam’s government to seek her release.
Supporters responded with the slogan “release Bao Ngoc” and sent more than 2,000 petitions to Vietnam’s embassy in Israel, Al Jazeera reported. Major Vietnamese media outlets did not report on her two days in Israeli detention, while Malaysia, Indonesia and other governments condemned Israel over the detention of their nationals on the flotilla, according to Al Jazeera.
Pro-government influencers in Vietnam then accused Bao Ngoc and pro-Palestinian groups of damaging the country’s image, Al Jazeera reported. Some questioned whether she was Vietnamese, and after a video showed her holding a Vietnamese passport, others claimed without evidence that the clip was AI-generated.
Vu Minh Hoang, a historian of diplomacy in Vietnam, told Al Jazeera that accusations of antigovernment activity were made even though protecting citizens is a basic responsibility of an embassy. Vietnam’s diplomatic mission to Israel later said it had been working to ensure Bao Ngoc’s safety and secure her release, along with other flotilla participants, to Istanbul in Turkiye.
Vu told Al Jazeera he could not recall a comparable recent case in which overseas activism by a Vietnamese citizen required government intervention. Ly Thuy Nguyen, a scholar of transnational activism, told Al Jazeera that Bao Ngoc’s appeal came partly from Vietnam’s war memory and a younger generation shaped by images of conflict rather than direct wartime experience.
Bao Ngoc told Al Jazeera she had not set out to become an activist. A sociology student and part-time baker in Ho Chi Minh City, she said her earlier activism had been limited to running an animal shelter in high school.
She became involved in Palestine activism after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attacks on southern Israel and Israel’s response, Al Jazeera reported. Bao Ngoc said she left her master’s programme at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore because of what she saw as the university’s links to Israel, then returned to Vietnam and helped found VietForPalestine in early 2024.
The group grew to more than 22,000 followers online and published material on Palestine and Vietnam-Palestine solidarity, according to Al Jazeera. Bao Ngoc first stayed anonymous, then appeared publicly after Israel bombed the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Hospital in Gaza in late 2024.
This story draws on original reporting from Al Jazeera.