The Hanoi High-Level People’s Court on Thursday upheld the 5-year prison sentence imposed in January on Dang Dinh Bach, director of the Research Center for Law and Policy for Sustainable Development (LPSD), saying Bach had refused to return VND 1.3 billion ($54,200) owed in taxes.

Bach had failed to file taxes and to report sponsorship from groups overseas from 2016 to 2020, the indictment against him said.

Speaking to RFA after the hearing, Bach’s wife Tran Phuong Thao said that security forces had barred her from attending her husband’s trial, forcing her to sit instead at the courthouse gate. Lawyers were also prevented from bringing laptop computers or mobile phones into the court, she said.

“I was not surprised by the outcome of the trial and was mentally prepared for whatever would happen,” Thao said. “My husband continues to deny all the charges made against him and still declares his innocence.

“Because my family has not paid the government’s so-called ‘remediation money,’ the court would not consider mitigating circumstances,” she said.

Rights groups and activists have condemned Loi’s, Duong’s and Bach’s jailing, noting their arrests followed their promotion of civil society’s role in monitoring the European Union-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), which came into force in 2021.