This was a bad week for democracy in Vietnam, as two prominent activists lost appeals against their jail sentences on Tuesday and another two on Wednesday.

The provincial People’s Court in the Central Highland province of Dak Lak, rejected the appeal of Y Wo Nie while the Higher People’s Court in Hanoi dismissed the appeal of Le Van Dung on Tuesday.

In December the Hanoi People's Court sentenced Phuong to 10 years in prison and five years’ probation. Tam was sentenced to six years in prison and three years’ probation.

The following day the appeals of Trinh Ba Phuong, 37, and Nguyen Thi Tam, 50, were rejected. They were both arrested on June 24, 2020 and charged with "conducting anti-state propaganda.” Phuong: is serving10 years in prison and 4 years' probation, Tam was jailed for six years with three months probation.

Y Wo Nie is a Protestant from the Ede ethnic minority. He was sentenced to four years by Cu Kuin district court on May 20 this year. He was charged with “abusing democratic freedom,” for reporting religious persecution in his region to international groups.

His conviction was based on an indictment claiming he took pictures of three handwritten human rights reports and sent them to several international organizations and also met with representatives of the US diplomatic mission in Vietnam.

Lawyer Nguyen Van Mieng told RFA his client had changed his appeal to protest his innocence.

“He changed his appeal from asking for reduced imprisonment to total freedom, saying that he was not guilty and did not violate Article 331 of the Criminal Code,” Mieng said.

The trial took place without a judicial expert, witnesses or relatives. Only the defendant, lawyer and an Ede-Vietnamese interpreter.”

The lawyer said Nie's wife and relatives were not allowed to enter the courtroom, so they, and more than 100 other Ede people, stood in the courtyard.

Mieng asked the appeals court to summon two examiners from the Department of Information and Communications of Dak Lak province and a diplomat from the U.S. Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City but his request was denied by the court.

The appeals panel did not mention a point in the original indictment saying that Nie met representatives of the U.S. Embassy and Consulate General in Gia Lai province’s Pleiku city in June 2020.

Pastor Nguyen Hong Quang, a former prisoner of conscience from Ho Chi Minh City, said the sentence was predetermined.

"When the accused complains, the court should consider letting the lawyer present the reasons for the complaint. The independence of the court must be based on the argument in court between the lawyer and the prosecutor and it is very unfortunate that the evidence was not applied in this hearing and the final court judgment,” Quang said.

“Vietnam’s justice system has not been effective in reforming and is still targeting dissidents. Those with different ways of thinking will be severely punished, especially regarding … the behavior of public authorities towards the Protestant community in the Central Highlands.”

Mieng also said the assessment of the Department of Information and Communications did not follow regulations and resembled the statement by the State Department spokesman, coming to the same conclusions as the original indictment.

The indictment of the People's Procuratorate of Dak Lak province states that Nie personally wrote three human rights reports, took pictures and sent them via WhatsApp to "reactionary subjects abroad."

Mieng said the documents included a copy of “The Violation of Religious Freedom” and the content of the report was sent to the UN Commission on Human Rights and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

The other two reports were on “The Situation of Religion and Human Rights of the Ede ethnic people in the Central Highlands,” and on “The Situation of Religious Freedom in General and in Particular for the Ethnic People in the Central Highlands."

Nie was arrested in September 2021 for activities judged to "affect the political security situation, social order and safety and the normal operation of State administrative agencies, reduce the public's confidence in the regime and affect the image of the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam as well as the prestige of the Communist Party of Vietnam in international diplomatic relations.”

This is Nie's second time in prison. He was sentenced to nine years for “undermining the unity policy,” a provision often used to imprison religious activists among many Montagnard ethnic minority groups in the Central Highlands.

A recent report on religious freedom from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) also criticized the Vietnamese government's crackdown on the mountain dwelling religious groups of the Central Highlands.

According to Vietnamese NGO Defend the Defenders, there are currently more than 60 religious freedom activists imprisoned with long sentences under the charge of "undermining the unity policy." Most of them are Protestants from many ethnic minorities in the Central Highlands.