Uwazi

On 27 March, authorities in Ha Noi arrested Le Trong Hung under Article 117, who had applied to be an independent (or ‘self-nominated’) candidate for a National Assembly seat in Ha Noi city. Le Trong Hung is a citizen journalist and a member of Chan Hung TV, a media group which broadcasts Facebook livestreams about social and political issues. According to his family, Le Trong Hung was arrested while walking in his neighbourhood and taken to his home by police who then searched the house. It is unknown where he is currently being detained.

Amnesty International

Defend the Defenders: Vietnam’s state-controlled media has reported that on April 2, authorities in Ho Chi Minh City arrested anti-corruption journalist Nguyen Hoai Nam on the allegation of “abusing democratic freedom” under Article 331 of the country’s Criminal Code.

Mr. Nam, 48, will be held in detention in the next three months and he faces imprisonment of between three and seven years in prison if is convicted.

He has worked for a number of state-run newspapers such as Phap Luat Viet Nam, Thanh Nien, and the Voice of Vietnam Radio (VOV). He left Phap Luat Viet Nam newspaper in December last year and became a freelancer.

Before being detained, Nam posted a series of articles on his Facebook account regarding wrongdoings and corruptions in the Vietnam Inland Waterway Administration (VIWA) of the Ministry of Transport. On March 23, he sent an open letter to Le Minh Tri, head of the Supreme People’s Procuracy in which Nam denounces the cooperation between the police forces and procuracy officials which led to crime covering in a number of cases, including the corruption case in the VIWA.

In February, the journalist who gained his reputation as a corruption fighter, was summoned by HCM City Police Department for interrogation as two state officials denounced that his corruption allegation is not correct.

Nam has been the second journalist of the state-controlled media being arrested since the beginning of this year for their anti-corruption activism. In mid-February, authorities in Quang Tri province arrested Phan Bui Bao Thy for his denunciation against senior officials in corruption, two of them are a deputy minister and the province’s chairman.

Vietnam is among the world’s biggest prisons for journalists and Facebookers, holding 28 of them in police custody, according to the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF)’s report released on December 1, 2020. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has also listed Vietnam among the global biggest prisons for journalistswith 15 journalists being imprisoned.

Defend the Defenders

Vietnam’s communist regime has convicted four activists named Mr. Vu Tien Chi, Ms. Nguyen Thi Cam Thuy, Ms. Ngo Thi Ha Phuong, and Mr. Le Viet Hoa of “Making, storing, spreading information, materials, items for the purpose of opposing the State of Socialist Republic of Vietnam” under Article 117 of the country’s Criminal Code for their online activities.

In two separated trials held in the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong and the central coastal province of Khanh Hoa on March 30, the four activists were sentenced to a combined total 31 years in prison and six years of probation. The People’s Court of Lam Dong gave Mr. Chi 10 years in prison followed by three years of probation while the People’s Court of Khanh Hoa sentenced Ms. Thuy to nine years in prison and three years of probation, Ms. Phuong- seven years and Mr. Hoa- five years in prison.

According to the indictment, from the beginning of 2018, Mr. Chi shared 338 articles and conducted 181 livestreams on his Facebook page with content distorting the regime’s policies and defaming senior communist leaders, including late President Ho Chi Minh, who founded the communist regime. These online posts are harmful for the regime and affected the people’s beliefs in the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam and its government, the trial panel of the People’s Court of Lam Dong concluded.

The People’s Court of Khanh Hoa province concluded that Ms. Thuy, a former school teacher fired for her political opinion, was responsible for 181 livestreams and many posts on her Facebook accounts “Nguyễn Cẩm Thúy” and “Cẩm Thúy Cô” to defame the regime. She was also accused of burning the red flags of the ruling party and the regime as well as cutting portraits of senior leaders, including the regime founder Ho Chi Minh.

On March 29, the Khanh Hoa newspaper, the mouthpiece of the province’s Party Committee reported that the province’s People’s Court will hold the first-instance hearing on March 30-31 to try Ms. Thuy and two others named Ngo Thi Phuong Ha and Le Viet Hoa, however, the state-controlled media has not reported their activities which can be used for their conviction.

The state-run newspapers also reported that Mr. Chi and Ms. Thuy know each other, having a joint plan to expand a network of people sharing the same thoughts to establish a political opposition.

Both Chi and Thuy were arrested on June 24 last year. There is no information about their pre-trial detention. It is unclear whether the four activists have their own lawyers during their trials or not.

They are among 51 activists being imprisoned on the charge of “conducting anti-state propaganda” under Article 117 of the Criminal Code 2015 (or Article 88 of the Penal Code 1999) which is condemned by the international community as an effective tool to silence government critics. President of the unregistered professional group Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam (IJAVN) PhD. Pham Chi Dung and his deputy Nguyen Tuong Thuy as well as world-recognized human rights defender and well-known political blogger Pham Doan Trang were also arrested on this charge. Mr. Dung and Mr. Thuy were sentenced to 15 years and 11 years in prison, respectively, in early January this year while Ms. Trang is still held incommunicado in pre-trial detention after her arrest on October 7 last year.

Defend the Defenders

A jailed Vietnamese blogger serving an 11-year prison term for writing articles criticizing Vietnam’s government is being denied family visits after being transferred to a new prison following his refusal to appeal his sentence, his wife said on Friday.

Nguyen Tuong Thuy, an independent journalist and former RFA blogger, was recently moved from a Ho Chi Minh City Police Investigation Agency detention center and sent to the Bo La prison in Binh Duong province, Thuy’s wife Nguyen Thi Lan said.

“Yesterday I went to the Bo La detention center to visit my husband. I arrived at 11:00 a.m. but couldn’t see him as the doors had been locked, and I had to wait until 1:30 p.m. to send him some food,” Lan said, adding that prison staff accepted her delivery of food but refused to let her visit or speak with Thuy.

“They explained that they were not allowed to do this, as they had to follow instructions from the Ho Chi Minh City police,” she said.

Lan said she was shown a February 2021 police notice suspending prison visits and consular contacts due to concerns over the spread of COVID-19, but insisted that this was still against the law. “The law stipulates that anyone temporarily detained is still allowed to see their family at least once a month.”

Even with concerns over COVID-19, the guards should have allowed her to see her husband at a distance or speak to him on the phone, Lan said.

“However, I had no choice but to accept their decision, as [the detention officers] are the ones who have the authority,” Lan said, adding she had heard that a prisoner being held on a drugs charge at the same facility had been allowed to call and speak to their family.

“I think the guards were just making excuses,” she said. “I don’t know why they would say what they did, but I believe they were just following their superiors’ instructions and not the law.”

Calls seeking comment from the Bo La detention center were not picked up on Friday.

Civil rights, freedom of speech

Nguyen Tuong Thuy, who had blogged on civil rights and freedom of speech issues for RFA’s Vietnamese Service for six years, was sentenced on Jan. 5 with two other bloggers—like Thuy members of the Vietnam Independent Journalists’ Association—who were handed lengthy jail terms at the same time.

Arrested in May 2020, Thuy was indicted along with Pham Chi Dung and Le Huu Minh Tuan on Nov. 10 for “making, storing, and disseminating documents and materials for anti-state purposes” under Article 117 of Vietnam’s Penal Code.

Sentenced with Thuy, Pham Chi Dung was given a 15-year prison term, while Le Huu Minh Tuan was jailed for 11 years.

Thuy later refused to appeal his sentence, tearing up a petition form given to his after prison guards told him what to write on it, Thuy’s lawyer told RFA in an earlier report.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) ranked Vietnam 175 out of 180 in its 2020 World Press Freedom Index. About 25 journalists and bloggers are being held in Vietnam’s jails, “where mistreatment is common,” the Paris-based watchdog group said.

Vietnam’s already low tolerance of dissent deteriorated sharply last year with a spate of arrests of independent journalists, publishers, and Facebook personalities as authorities continued to stifle critics in the run-up to the ruling Communist Party Congress in January.

RFA

Police in north-central Vietnam’s Nghe An province arrested the owner of a private clinic on Monday, accusing the physician of undermining people’s trust in the Communist Party in a series of articles posted on social media, state media sources said.

Nguyen Duy Huong, a 34-year-old medical doctor and owner of the Duy Nhi clinic in the Yen Thanh district’s Vienh Tanh commune, was charged under Article 117 of the Criminal Code with “creating, storing, or disseminating information and documents against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.”

Security services said that articles posted since 2018 on Huong’s Facebook page included a Feb. 20, 2021 story called “Why Should We Criticize Nguyen Phu Trong,” which criticized the ruling Communist Party general secretary, now serving his third term in office, for turning the party into “a swamp.”

Huong had written in the same article that he was willing to sacrifice even his family and job in order to change the Party and the country, according to a report in the Ministry of Public Security’s official newspaper.

“I have devoted my life to this [cause],” Huong wrote, quoted in the Ministry paper. “Reforms must be carried out so that our people can really be their own masters, the party can be cleaned up, and the country can move forward.”

Huong’s writings had undermined the Vietnamese people’s trust in their ruling party and the socialist regime and had harmed political and ideological unity in the country, and should therefore be “handled strictly,” the ministry paper said.

RFA

Prison wardens in southern Vietnam unleashed a hunting dog on a political prisoner serving an 11-year sentence for subversion to silence his complaints about solitary confinement in a cramped cell, his family told RFA.

Democracy advocate Nguyen Van Duc Do has been incarcerated since late 2018 at the Z30A detention center in Xuan Loc district of Dong Nai province for “activities aimed at overthrowing the government.”

Arrested in November 2016, Do and four other activists were convicted on Oct. 5, 2018 in a Ho Chi Minh City court after being found guilty in a one-day trial of involvement in the Vietnam National Self-Determination Coalition, a group that authorities deemed to have challenged Vietnam’s Communist one-party system.

Do’s inability to exercise in the small eight-square-meter (about 87 square feet) cell resulted in his physical condition deteriorating to the point where he often had chest pains and difficulty breathing, his brother said.

“My brother told me that yesterday, March 15, he banged on the door of his cell to call for help because he had pains in his chest and back that made it hard for him to breathe,” Do’s younger brother, Nguyen Van Duc Hai told RFA’s Vietnamese Service.

“He said that the prison was very large, so no one can hear you if you don’t shout. This is why he banged on the door shouting ‘Prisoners of conscience also need to live!’” said Hai.

This is when Do said the guards brought in a hunting dog to silence him.

“My brother said the dog was about to pounce on him, so he jumped back inside. Though it didn’t bite him, the dog barked loudly at him while standing at the door,” Hai said.

RFA attempted to contact the prison for comment but telephone calls went unanswered.

Do’s group had been charged under Article 79 of Vietnam’s Penal Code, one of a set of vague provisions in the law used to detain writers, activists, and bloggers, and had been held without trial for almost two years.

The group had previously been active in protesting the government’s handling of a massive chemical spill in April 2016 that devastated the country’s central coast, leaving fishermen and tourism workers jobless in four central provinces.

Group leader Luu Van Vinh was given 15 years. Nguyen Quoc Hoan was sentenced to 13 years, Tu Cong Nghia to 10 years, Phan Trung to 8 years, and Nguyen Van Duc Do to 11 years.

Nguyen Van Duc Hai said his brother Do had been in solitary confinement since May 2020, and since then had not been allowed to go out, even for exercise.

Hai also said that Do was being pressured by prison staff to plead guilty in exchange for a reduced sentence.

“My brother Do said they often bring him papers to file a guilty plea and asked him to sign, but he responded ‘I am innocent. The verdict was wrong. Am only a patriot!’” Hai said.

“They told him that if he pleads guilty, they can reduce his sentence by two months for every five years. But my brother said ‘I am innocent. How can I plead guilty? I was convicted wrongfully,’” said Hai.

Do also told Hai that prisoners at Xuan Loc are often beaten to the point of serious injury.

RFA reported in June 2020 that Do’s family had filed a petition demanding better treatment at Xuan Loc after he told them he had been physically assaulted, spent two days shacked in solitary confinement, then fed prison rations mixed with feces.

In October 2019 RFA reported that Do had joined other prisoners of conscience held at Xuan Loc who had also stopped eating to call for beater treatment at the facility.

According to a friend interviewed in that report, political prisoners at Xuan Loc were being charged four or five times higher for food than other prisoners there.

According to the 88 Project, an Illinois-based NGO that tracks political prisoners, Vietnam is currently holding 240 prisoners of conscience.

Trial for journalist

Authorities have set a trial date for detained journalist Tran Thi Tuyet Dieu on charges of “creating, storing, disseminating information, documents, items and publications against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” as stated in Article 117 of the 2015 Criminal Code.

Dieu, also known by her pen name Dieu Anh, will stand trial at the Phu Yen People’s Court on March 22.

Dieu was arrested on Aug. 21, 2020 for posting on social media hundreds of stories, images, and video clips that authorities say were “content that opposed the Party, State and People, smearing President Ho Chi Minh and many other leaders of the Party and State.” The People’s Public Security Newspaper accused her of posting the content using multiple accounts on Facebook and other social media websites.

She was also accused of writing stories that ““distorted Vietnam’s Revolutionary history, inciting the overthrow of the people’s government, demanding multi-party pluralism, disseminating wrong information about the activities of law-enforcement bodies, showing uncooperative and opposing attitude when being invited to work with responsible authorities.”

If convicted Dieu could receive a sentence ranging from five to 12 years.

Dieu’s lawyer Nguyen Kha Than told RFA that Dieu will plead innocent and had refused to sign interview records compiled by investigation agencies.

“These days it seems Facebook users who post words that are different than the normal thinking of others are often prosecuted on this charge. Ms. Dieu said she was arrested after having quit Facebook for several months,” Than said.

RFA

Vietnamese land-rights activist Trinh Ba Phuong is being held in a state-run mental hospital after being transferred from his former detention center, according to his wife, who was informed of his whereabouts on Monday.

After visiting Hanoi police on March 22 to ask about her husband, Phuong’s wife Do Thi Thu was told he had been sent to the hospital in Hanoi’s Thuong Tin district for “evaluation” after refusing to cooperate with investigators, Thu told RFA on Monday.

“It was [investigating officer] Le The Bac who told me in person that my husband had been sent to the National Psychiatric Hospital No. 1 on March 1,” Thu said, adding she was told that her husband had been “uncooperative” with police, refusing to look at his interrogators or answer their questions.

“Because of this behavior, prosecutors asked that an assessment of Phuong’s health be carried out for around four to six weeks,” Thu said she was told.

Investigators had previously summoned Phuong’s family members on Sept. 3, 2020 to ask about Phuong’s behavior at home and whether there was a history of mental illness in the family, Thu said. “I told them that when he was at home, Phuong was healthy and loved his wife and children, and that there is no one in my family with mental health problems.”

“Then, in December, Phuong asked someone to call me, and that person told me that Phuong had said he would uphold his right to silence until he could see his lawyer. That person also said that Phuong wanted to remind us not to say anything to police ourselves, as we too have the right to silence.”

Calls seeking comment from the National Psychiatric Hospital No. 1 were answered by a receptionist who said she did not know of any patient there named Trinh Ba Truong and that there were over 600 patients in the hospital.

Calls to the hospital’s General Planning Department were not picked up on Monday.

The right to maintain silence

Speaking to RFA, Phuong’s defense attorney Dang Dinh Manh said his client was within his rights under Vietnam’s Criminal Code “not to give testimony against himself or to plead guilty,” adding that he plans to file a complaint in the case with prosecutors and the Hanoi Security Investigation Office.

“The Criminal Code stipulates that defendants have the right to maintain silence,” the lawyer said. “Thus I was very surprised to hear that not giving responses [to investigators] should be taken as a sign of mental illness and that ‘assessments’ are needed.”

“Because I got this information from Phuong’s family and not in an official notice given to me as his lawyer, I’ll ask the Security Investigation Office to confirm it," he said.

"And if they do, I’ll take further legal steps which could include filing a complaint about Phuong’s transfer for health assessments without legal justification."

A well-known land-rights activist in Hanoi, Trinh Ba Phuong was arrested on June 24, 2020 with his younger brother, Trinh Ba Tu, and his mother, Can Thi Theu, on charges of “creating, storing, and disseminating information, documents, items and publications opposing the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.”

The three family members had been outspoken in social media postings about the Jan. 9, 2020 clash in Dong Tam commune in which 3,000 police stormed barricaded protesters’ homes at a construction site about 25 miles south of the capital, killing a village elder.

They had also offered information to foreign embassies and other international figures to try to raise awareness of the incident.

While all land is ultimately held by the state, land confiscations have become a flashpoint as residents accuse the government of pushing small landholders aside in favor of lucrative real estate projects, and of paying too little in compensation to farming families displaced by development.

RFA

Police in Hanoi at the weekend summoned Trinh Ba Khiem—the husband of detained Dong Tam land-rights activist Can Thi Thieu and father of their two sons—ordering him to remove live-stream postings on Facebook they said were defaming the Communist Party.

“They said that the communist regime would arrest me and punish me harshly if I kept putting videos up on social media,” Khiem told RFA, adding that it’s likely now that he will be jailed following the arrests of his wife and sons.

“My wife and children are already in prison, so I’m not frightened at all, even if they jail me for 20 years or if I die in prison,” he said.

During his meeting with police, Khiem asked to see his son Trinh Ba Phuong, who was transferred from a detention center to a state-run psychiatric hospital in early March for “evaluation” after refusing to speak to police investigators – the third prisoner of conscience known to have been sent for psychiatric treatment.

A well-known land-rights activist in Hanoi, Phuong was arrested on June 24, 2020 with his younger brother, Trinh Ba Tu, and his mother, Can Thi Theu, on charges of “creating, storing, and disseminating information, documents, items and publications opposing the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.”

The three family members had been outspoken in social media postings about the Jan. 9, 2020 clash in Dong Tam commune in which 3,000 police stormed barricaded protesters’ homes at a construction site about 25 miles south of the capital, killing a village elder.

'Mentally strong'

Can Thi Theu meanwhile met on Tuesday with a defense lawyer for the first time since her arrest in June, her attorney, Le Luan, wrote on his Facebook page, describing his client as “mentally strong.”

Speaking to RFA on Wednesday, Theu’s daughter Trinh Thi Thao confirmed the meeting, adding she had given Le Luan a letter she had written to her mother, along with photographs of her mother’s four grandchildren.

“The lawyer said that we would meet with Trinh Ba Tu on another day,” she said.

Can Thi Theu had earlier served a 20-month prison term after being convicted in 2016 of “disturbing public order” for joining protests with others over their loss of land which was taken by the government to give to private companies without payment of adequate compensation.

While all land is ultimately held by the state, land confiscations have become a flashpoint as residents accuse the government of pushing small landholders aside in favor of lucrative real estate projects, and of paying too little in compensation to farming families displaced by development.

RFA

An appeals court in Vietnam’s capital Hanoi on Wednesday upheld the 12-year prison sentence handed to dissident writer Tran Duc Thach in December, sending him back to prison to serve his full term without hearing any arguments from his lawyer.

Thach, 69 and a founder of Vietnam’s online Brotherhood for Democracy, had heard only on Monday that the trial would be held, attorney Ha Huy Son told RFA on Tuesday.

Thach’s appeals hearing lasted just under two hours and was held without arguments between Thach’s defense attorney Ha Huy Son and government prosecutors, Son told RFA’s Vietnamese Service following the trial.

“It seems that the court had arranged its verdict ahead of time, as it was clearly made without any consideration being given to what Thach had actually done,” he said.

Arrested on April 23, 2020 Thach had been charged with “activities aimed at overthrowing the People’s Government” under Article 109 of Vietnam’s Criminal Code for Facebook postings exposing government corruption and human rights abuses.

The Brotherhood for Democracy is not recognized by the Vietnamese government, and many of its members have been imprisoned since its founding in 2013.

Speaking at Wednesday’s trial, a government prosecutor called Thach’s actions “dangerous to society,” saying they had threatened national security and undermined public trust in Vietnam’s political system.

Thach’s first trial had been compromised by “serious violations of legal proceedings,” Thach’s defense team said in a closing statement, noting that Thach had been tried on charges under the 2015 Criminal Code, which came into effect in early January 2018, well after his alleged offenses.

Prosecutors on Wednesday had also enjoyed full access to Thach’s case file, while defense lawyers were not allowed to have a copy of it, attorney Ha Huy Son said.

Thach had previously served a three-year jail term after being convicted in October 2009 of “conducting propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” and his return to prison now comes amid a new surge of jailings and convictions following a spate of arrests last year in the run-up to a top-level Communist Party conference in January.

'I'm not frightened at all'

Separately, police in Hanoi at the weekend summoned Trinh Ba Khiem—the husband of detained Dong Tam land-rights activist Can Thi Thieu and father of their two sons—ordering him to remove live-stream postings on Facebook they said were defaming the Communist Party.

“They said that the communist regime would arrest me and punish me harshly if I kept putting videos up on social media,” Khiem told RFA, adding that it’s likely now that he will be jailed following the arrests of his wife and sons.

“My wife and children are already in prison, so I’m not frightened at all, even if they jail me for 20 years or if I die in prison,” he said.

During his meeting with police, Khiem asked to see his son Trinh Ba Phuong, who was transferred from a detention center to a state-run psychiatric hospital in early March for “evaluation” after refusing to speak to police investigators – the third prisoner of conscience known to have been sent for psychiatric treatment.

A well-known land-rights activist in Hanoi, Phuong was arrested on June 24, 2020 with his younger brother, Trinh Ba Tu, and his mother, Can Thi Theu, on charges of “creating, storing, and disseminating information, documents, items and publications opposing the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.”

The three family members had been outspoken in social media postings about the Jan. 9, 2020 clash in Dong Tam commune in which 3,000 police stormed barricaded protesters’ homes at a construction site about 25 miles south of the capital, killing a village elder.

'Mentally strong'

Can Thi Theu meanwhile met on Tuesday with a defense lawyer for the first time since her arrest in June, her attorney, Le Luan, wrote on his Facebook page, describing his client as “mentally strong.”

Speaking to RFA on Wednesday, Theu’s daughter Trinh Thi Thao confirmed the meeting, adding she had given Le Luan a letter she had written to her mother, along with photographs of her mother’s four grandchildren.

“The lawyer said that we would meet with Trinh Ba Tu on another day,” she said.

Can Thi Theu had earlier served a 20-month prison term after being convicted in 2016 of “disturbing public order” for joining protests with others over their loss of land which was taken by the government to give to private companies without payment of adequate compensation.

While all land is ultimately held by the state, land confiscations have become a flashpoint as residents accuse the government of pushing small landholders aside in favor of lucrative real estate projects, and of paying too little in compensation to farming families displaced by development.

RFA

Defend the Defenders, March 10, 2021

Authorities in Vietnam’s northern province of Ninh Binh have arrested local Facebooker Tran Quoc Khanh and charged him with “conducting anti-state propaganda” under Article 117 of the country’s Criminal Code for his online posts criticizing the communist regime on various issues.

According to the state-controlled media, Mr. Khanh, 61, was detained by the Ninh Binh police on March 10 and taken him to a provincial detention center. He will be held incommunicado for at least four months and not allowed to meet his defense lawyer and relatives in the pre-trial detention. He will face imprisonment of between seven and 12 years even 20 years in prison if is convicted, according to the current law.

Mr. Khanh has posted his own writings, carrying out many livestreams and sharing numerous articles on his Facebook account Trần Quốc Khánh with the content related on serious human rights violations, systemic corruption among state officials, the Vietnamese communist regime’s weak response to China’s violations of the country’s sovereignty in the East Sea (South China Sea) and widespread environmental pollution. The state-controlled media reported that he was arrested due to his posts which defaming the communist regime and distorting its policies.

Recently, Khanh has announced that he would run for a seat in the country’s highest legislative body National Assembly in the general election scheduled in May as an indipendent candidate.

He has been the third Facebooker being arrested for online posts so far this year. One month ago, the authorities of the central province of Quang Trị arrested state newspaper’s journalist Phan Bui Bao Thy and his partner Le Anh Dung and charged them with “abusing democratic freedom” under Article 331 of the Criminal Code for their online posts to denounce corruption of state officials in the local projects.

In January this year, Vietnam convicted three independent journalists Pham Chi Dung, Nguyen Tuong Thuy and Pham Minh Tuan, members of the Independent Journalist Association of Vietnam, and environmentalist Dinh Thi Thu Thuy to between seven years and 15 years in prison on the allegation of “conducting anti-state propaganda.”

Vietnam’s already low tolerance of dissent deteriorated sharply in recent years with a spate of arrests of hundreds of independent journalists, publishers, and Facebookers. With many conservative figures of the ruling Communist Partybeing re-elected to the country’s leadership in the next five years in the 13th National Congress which ended on February 1, more arrests are expected in future.

Defend the Defenders

Two journalists employed by official media are being held by police in central Vietnam’s Quang Tri province on charges of “abusing press freedoms” for posting articles online criticizing provincial leaders, state media and other sources say.

Phan Bui Bao Thy, 56 and bureau chief of the online magazine Age and Education, and an associate, Le Anh Dung, 50, were taken into custody on Feb. 10 after articles appeared on Facebook pages the two men operated accusing provincial officials of corruption, police said.

One article posted in August on Thy’s Facebook page accused Le Quang Than—deputy chairman of Quang Tri’s Huong Hoa district, and a member of the Huong Hoa Communist Party Committee—of falsifying his educational credentials.

State media did not report the contents of the pair’s other allegedly defamatory online postings. Online access to Age and Education is now blocked.

Press freedoms group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) noted on Feb. 16 that on one site, Quang Tri 357, Thy had posted reports of alleged corruption involving the province’s president, Vo Van Hung, and deputy minister of culture, tourism and sports, Nguyen Van Hung.

Thy will now be held for questioning for the next two months, RSF said, adding, “The police, who carried out searches of his home, claim to have found a great deal of information related to this activities as an online reporter.”

In a statement, Daniel Bastard—head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk—called for Thy’s immediate release, saying “he was just trying to serve the general interest in his work as a journalist.”

“His fate highlights the straitjacket enclosing public media journalists in Vietnam, who are persecuted as soon as they stray from the official line imposed by the ruling Communist Party’s propaganda department.”

“In so doing, the Vietnamese authorities violate article 25 of their own constitution,” Bastard said.

Thy’s arrest came five weeks after the sentencing by a Ho Chi Minh City court of three independent journalists—Pham Chi Dung, Nguyen Tuong Thuy, and Le Huu Minh Tuan—on charges of carrying out propaganda against the state.

Other journalists jailed

Nguyen Tuong Thuy, who had blogged on civil rights and freedom of speech issues for RFA’s Vietnamese Service for six years, was sentenced on Jan. to an 11-year prison term for “making, storing, and disseminating documents and materials for anti-state purposes” under Article 117 of Vietnam’s Penal Code.

Sentenced with Thuy, Pam Chi Dung was given a 15-year prison term, while Le Huu Minh Tuan was jailed for 11 years.

Reporters Without Borders ranked Vietnam 175 out of 180 in its 2020 World Press Freedom Index. Around 25 journalists and bloggers are being held in Vietnam’s jails, “where mistreatment is common,” the Paris-based watchdog group said.

Vietnam’s already low tolerance of dissent deteriorated sharply last year with a spate of arrests of independent journalists, publishers, and Facebook personalities as authorities continued to stifle critics in the run-up to the ruling Communist Party Congress in January.

RFA

A Vietnamese blogger held in a mental hospital while awaiting trial for criticizing Vietnam’s one-party communist state was refused a visit from supporters on Wednesday, with authorities saying he is being kept in isolation as a “political case.”

Le Anh Hung, a member of the online Brotherhood of Democracy advocacy group who blogged for Voice of America, was arrested on July 5, 2018 on a charge of “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the state” under Article 331 of Vietnam’s criminal code.

He was later transferred in April 2019 from jail to Hanoi’s Central Mental Hospital No. 1 for “observation and treatment.” If convicted at trial, he could serve up to seven years in prison.

Fellow activist Vu Hung and a group of friends attempted on Feb. 17 to bring gifts to Le at his hospital to celebrate Tet, the start of the Lunar New Year, but were denied permission to visit, Vu told RFA on Thursday.

“Yesterday was the day that the hospital re-opened after Tet, and so we went to see our friend Le Anh Hung and tried to give him New Year gifts,” Vu said.

“But a hospital official told us that Le Anh Hung had been involved in politics, and therefore we were not allowed to meet with him.”

The officer told Vu and his friends that Le was in good health but was being held under “extremely strict conditions,” Vu said, adding, “So we left our gifts for Le Anh Hung and left the hospital.”

Also speaking to RFA, Le’s mother Tran Thi Nhiem said on Thursday she had received a phone call from her son the previous day and was assured he was in good health.

“Yesterday, my son borrowed a cell phone and called me from the hospital to tell me was doing well. He is still completely lucid,” Tran said.

“My son had previously been severely beaten and tortured by the hospital’s officials, but now he does not argue with them anymore. At the same time, I’ve recently been able to send him some money, so his situation is better now,” she said.

Beaten, forcibly injected

Le had been forced in his first years in hospital to take drugs to treat his supposed mental illness, and had once been beaten with a metal folding chair, tied to his bed, and injected with a sedative that left him unconscious, sources told RFA in earlier reports.

Tran called on authorities in June 2019 to release her son from his forced stay in the mental hospital, where she said he was being forced to take medicine and was suffering “both mentally and physically.”

Le, in his mid-30s, had lost weight and looked ragged, gaunt, and depressed, Tran told RFA following a May 2019 visit to her son in the hospital, adding that he had undergone psychiatric assessments twice between October 2018 and April without his family being informed.

Vietnam’s already low tolerance of dissent deteriorated sharply last year with a spate of arrests of independent journalists, publishers, and Facebook personalities as authorities continued to stifle critics in the run-up to the ruling Communist Party Congress in January.

Reporters Without Borders ranked Vietnam 175 out of 180 in its 2020 World Press Freedom Index. Around 25 journalists and bloggers are being held in Vietnam’s jails, “where mistreatment is common,” the Paris-based watchdog group said.

RFA

On 20 January 2021, the People’s Court of Hau Giang sentenced woman human rights defenderĐinh Thị Thu Thủy to seven years in prison. The woman defender was charged under Article 117of the Penal Code, which relates to conducting anti-state propaganda. Đinh Thị Thu Thủy has beenin detention since her arrest from her from her apartment in Ho Chi Minh City on 18 April 2020. Đinh Thị Thu Thủyis a woman human rights defender and an engineer. As a woman human rightsdefender, she has been a strong advocate for freedom of expression and environmental rights, andhas been outspoken against the negative implications of overseas investment projects. On 20 January 2021, at her first- instance hearing, the People’s Court of Hau Giang sentencedĐinh Thị Thu Thủy to seven years in prison. The woman defender has been charged with “making,storing, disseminating or propagandising information, materials and products that aim to opposethe State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” under article 117 of the Penal Code of 2015. ĐinhThị Thu Thủy was arrested on 18 April 2020 for allegedly creating several Facebook accounts todisseminate articles to distort Vietnam’s policies and to defame its leadership. She was alsoaccused by authorities of criticizing the communist regime’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.The woman human rights defender was held in incommunicado detention for seven months untilNovember 2020, when she was finally allowed to have contact with her family. Đinh Thị Thu Thủywas granted access to her lawyer for the first time in December 2020, eight months after herdetention. The woman defender is a single mother to a nine year old girl and has been undersevere psychological stress due to lack of visitation and contact with her family. In the past two years, Đinh Thị Thu Thủy has come under frequent judicial harassment,persecution, and surveillance by the Vietnamese authorities. After her participation in a masspeaceful demonstration in Ho Chi Minh City on June 2018, which protested two bills, the SpecialEconomic Zone Bill and the Cyber Security Bill, the woman human rights defender was detained,beaten, interrogated, and fined before being released. The Special Economic Zone bill sought tofavour Chinese investments in the country, in spite of existing disputes amongst the two countriesand the environmental repercussions of such investments. The Cyber Security Bill, which hassince been passed to become law, strives to curb any form of online dissent or criticism against thegovernment. Đinh Thị Thu Thủy’s sentencing comes after the sentencing of three human rights defenders,Nguyen Tuong Thuy, Le Huu Minh Tuan and Pham Chi Dung under the same charges underArticle 117 of the Penal Code. On 14 January 2020, UN experts, in a press release, condemned therecent arrests in Vietnam and the dangerous and blatant usage of Article 117 of the Penal Code tosilence critical voices and further restrict the right to freedom of expression. Front Line Defenders condemns the arrest and sentencing of woman human rights defender ĐinhThị Thu Thủy. It is concerned about the shrinking space for exercising the right to freedom ofexpression in the country and the ongoing judicial harassment of human rights defenders. FrontLine Defenders believes that Đinh Thị Thu Thủy, like other human rights defenders recentlyarrested, is being targeted solely for her peaceful work in defence of human rights in Vietnam.

FLD

On January 8, the Higher People’s Court in Ho Chi Minh City rejected the appeals of four members of the unsanctioned group Hiến Pháp (Constitution), upholding the sentences given by the People’s Court of HCM City at the first-instance hearing on July 31 last year, Defend the Defenders has learned.

According to the court’s decision, Ms. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Hanh has to serve eight years in prison and three years of probation while Mr. Ngo Van Dung, Mr. Le Quy Loc and Mr. Ho Dinh Cuong have to spend next five years behind bar followed by two years of probation each. They were arrested in early September 2018 on the allegation of “disruption of security” under Article 118 of the Criminal Code.

Nearly five months ago, at the first-instance hearing, the People’s Court of HCM City convicted eight members of the unsanctioned group Hiến Pháp (Constitution) of “disruption of security” for their active participation in the mass demonstration to protest two bills on Special Economic Zones and Cyber Security in HCM City on June 10, 2018 and their plan to hold peaceful protests in early September of the same year. After just one day review, the court gave Ms. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Hanh eight years in prison, Mrs. Hoang Thi Thu Vang- seven, Ms. Doan Thi Hong two and half years, Mr. Ngo Van Dung, Mr. Do The Hoa and Mr. Le Quy Loc five years each, Mr. Ho Dinh Cuong four and half years, and Mr. Tran Thanh Phuong three and half years in prison.

In addition, Mr. Dung, Mr. Cuong, Mr. Phuong, and Ms. Hong were given two years of probation after serving their imprisonment. Four others were given three-year probation.

After the trial, four of them, Ms. Hanh, Mr. Dung, Mr. Loc and Mr. Cuong protested the court’s decisions and appealed.

Hiến Pháp was established in 2017 with the aim of enhancing civil rights in Vietnam by disseminating the country’s Constitution which was ratified by the communist-controlled parliament in 2013. The eight convicted members, together with others of the group were active during the mass demonstration in HCM City on June 10, 2018 in which tens of thousands of people from all social classes rallied on streets to protest two bills on Special Economic Zones and Cyber Security. The first bill is considered to favor Chinese investors to purchase land in Vietnam amid increasing concerns of Beijing’s intensifying aggressiveness in the East Sea (South China Sea). The second which was approved by the communist-controlled parliament and became effective from January 1, 2019, is considered an effective tool to silence online government critics.

Members of the group planned to hold the second peaceful demonstration in early September of the same year on the occasion of Vietnam’s Independence Day (September 2) to protest the socio-economic policies of the communist regime. However, they were abducted by security forces in HCM City a few days before the action date. Their fate and whereabouts remained unknown for months as the police held them incommunicado without informing their families, possibly rising to the level of enforced disappearance under international law, and even after the families had been informed of the detention they remained incommunicado for nearly a year.

In mid-April last year, Mr. Dung and Mr. Loc were brutally beaten by police officers while being held in Phan Dang Luu temporary detention center under the authority of HCM City Police Department. Due to the severe injuries, both were taken to a hospital for urgent treatment for ten days.

Despite doing nothing harmful for the country, Hiến Pháp group has been targeted by Vietnam’s communist regime. Two members of the group Pham Minh The and Huynh Truong Ca were convicted of “abusing democratic freedom” and “anti-state propaganda” with respective imprisonment of two years and five and half years in 2018-2019. Mr. The was released on July 10 last year, three months before his imprisonment term was set to end.

Three other members of the group fled to Thailand to seek political asylum to avoid being punished by the Vietnamese regime.

Ms. Le Thi Binh became the latest activist being arrested last year, got detained on December 22 and charged with “abusing democratic freedom.” Binh is also a member of the Hiến Pháp group.

All of them are listed as prisoners of conscience by Defend the Defenders. According to the Hanoi-based human rights group, Vietnam’s communist regime is holding at least 258 prisoners of conscience.

Defend the Defenders

Authorities in Vietnam arrested a journalist Thursday for social media posts criticizing tollbooths set up under a controversial infrastructure funding program, local media reported.

Truong Chau Huu Danh, a contributor to a popular Facebook page Bao Sach (Clean Newspaper), that discusses Vietnamese social issues, had posted criticism of build-operate-transfer (BOT) highways that Vietnam had adopted in recent years, sparking rare motorist protests over toll collection.

Truong has been active as a journalist for several Vietnamese newspapers, reporting on protests against what activists say is “illegal toll collection” and the “illogical construction of tollbooths” across the country.

He was detained by police in Can Tho, a province-level city in the country’s deep south, on charges of “abusing democratic rights to infringe upon the benefits of other individuals and/or organizations,” under Article 331, the Vietnam 2015 Penal Code.

They transferred Truong to authorities in his hometown in nearby Long An province. If convicted, he could serve up to three years in prison.

The procuracy in Can Tho approved detention of up to three months for investigation.

In his last status update on his Facebook fan page, Truong posted photos of Ho Chi Minh City’s deputy party chief Tat Thanh Cang and former transport minister Dinh La Thang, who were both recently arrested and prosecuted.

The photos had been altered to show them in prison uniforms, and Truong had titled the post “reunion.”

Truong is one of the founders of the Bao Sach Facebook page, which currently has more than 100,000 likes. The page has gained notoriety for raising concerns over a death sentence handed to Ho Duy Hai, who was arrested in March 2008 and convicted nine months later of plundering property and murdering two female postal employees in Long An Province.

Ho’s case has been marred by accusations of procedural errors, including Ho’s contention that he was made to confess while in pretrial detention.

CPJ denial

Also on Thursday, Vietnam rejected a report by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) about detained journalists worldwide.

The report, released Tuesday, said that Hanoi has arrested at least 15 journalists in 2020, not including Truong.

At a press briefing, Le Thi Thu Hang, spokeswoman for Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the report was full of stereotypes about the Vietnamese situation.

“In Viet Nam, just like in other rules-based government across the world, every citizen is equal in front of the law and anyone who commits legal violations will have to be handled in accordance with judiciary procedures as codified in the existing laws,” she said.

Vietnam, with a population of 92 million people, has been consistently rated “not free” in the areas of internet and press freedom by Freedom House, a U.S.-based watchdog group.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) ranked Vietnam 175 out of 180 in its 2020 World Press Freedom Index. About 25 journalists and bloggers are being held in Vietnam’s jails, “where mistreatment is common,” the Paris-based watchdog group said.

Vietnam’s already low tolerance of dissent deteriorated sharply this year with a spate of arrests of independent journalists, publishers, and Facebook personalities as authorities continued to stifle critics in the run-up to the ruling Communist Party congress in January.

RFA

On December 15, the People’s Court of Vietnam’s central province of Nghe An convicted try local human rights defender and democracy fighter Tran Duc Thach on allegation of subversion under Article 109 of the Criminal Code, sentencing him to 12 years in prison and three years of probation.

The first-instance hearing lasted only three hours, said Hanoi-based lawyer Ha Huy Son, adding Mr. Thach’s wife and younger brother were permitted to be in the courtroom to obseve the trial. It is likely no foreign diplomats have been present in the hearing.

The 68-year-old activist did not admit his wrongdoing but declared to appeal the court’s verdict, saying he just exercized his basic rights to protect the country amid China’s increasing aggressiveness in the East Sea (South China Sea) and voice against human rights abuse.

He has not fully recovered from high blood pressure and other diseases, said attorney Son who visited him one day prior to his trial in police custody. His trial was initially scheduled on November 30 but it was cancelled due to his poor health.

Mr. Thach, born in 1952, is a former prisoner of conscience from the central province of Nghe An, the home of late communist leader Ho Chi Minh. Thach is a founding member of the unregistered group Brotherhood for Democracy (BFD).

On April 23, security forces arrested Mr. Thach on allegation of conducting “Activities against the people’s government,” with the highest punishment of 20 years in prison or even death penalty. Police conducted searching for his house, confiscating a laptop, cell phones, a camera as well as VND9 million ($380) and $400, according to his family.

The state-controlled media reported that Mr. Thach has been continuously posting and sharing numerous articles on Facebook with content to distort the regime’s policies with the aim to trigger social disorders amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

He was arrested for the first time in 2009 and sentenced to three years in jail and three years of probation on a charge of “conducting anti-state propaganda” under Article 88 of the Penal Code, Article 117 under the current Penal Code, for claiming Vietnam’s Hoang Sa (Paracels) and Truong Sa (Spratlys), the two archipelagos also claimed by China, and demanding human rights improvement in the communist nation. Particularly, Thach, together with activists Vu Van Hung and Nguyen Xuan Nghia hang out a banner which states “Hoang Sa and Truong Sa belong to Vietnam” at Mai Dich Bridge in the capital city of Hanoi. His fellows were also jailed with lengthy sentences.

Thach was an officer of the communist army participating in the Vietnam War. After leaving the communist army in 1975, Thach wrote a memoir named “Obsessive mass grave” to describe how communist soldiers assaulted innocent civil people while invading South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. In 1976, he self-immolated to protest unfair policies of authorities in Nghe An province and Dien Chau district. Due to the act, his face was deformed.

Vietnam’s communist regime has intensified its crackdown on local dissent from late 2015 when the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam began to prepare for its 12th National Congress. More than 100 activists were arrested and charged with controversial allegations in the National Security provisions of the Penal Code 1999 or the Criminal Code 2015, many of them were sentenced to lengthy imprisonments of between five and 20 years.

BFD is the group that suffered the most from the ongoing persecution campaign of the communist regime. Its nine key members were sentenced to between seven and 15 years in prison, and only two of them, human rights attorney Nguyen Van Dai and Le Thu Ha were freed but forced to live in exile in Germany. Thach’s latest arrest is related to BFD. In 2017, when Vietnam’s police arrested six key members of the group, he was summoned to a police station and interrogated for days about his activities in the organization.

After Thach’s arrest, Vietnam’s communist regime has detained a number of activists and bloggers and charged them with controversial crimes in the National Security provisions of the Criminal Code. The detainees included Vice President of the unregistered professional group Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam (IJAVN) Nguyen Tuong Thuy and its young editor Le Huu Minh Tuan, well-known blogger Pham Chi Thanh (aka Pham Thanh), and prominent human rights defender and political blogger Pham Doan Trang, who was taken into custody on the day Vietnam and the US conducted the 24th Annual Human Rights Dialogue. All of them were charged with “conducting anti-state propaganda” for their posts critical to the communist regime.

Mr. Thach is likely not the last activist being convicted and sentenced this year. Vietnam’s communist regime has a plan to try two Facebookers Huynh Anh Khoa and Nguyen Dang Thuong on the charge of “abusing democratic freedom” under Article 331 of the country’s Criminal Code. Mr. Khoa and Mr. Thuong were arrested by security forces in Ho Chi Minh City on June 13 this year in relation to a group on Facebook in which its members held discussions about Vietnam’s socio-economic issues. The two guys are admins of a Facebook group named Bàn luận Kinh tế-Chính trị (Economic-Political Discussion) with 46,000 followers. However, the group was closed immediately after the arrests of its two admins.

According to well-known blogger Le Nguyen Huong Tra who is lives in Germany, Khoa and Thuong are admins of a Facebook group named Bàn luận Kinh tế-Chính trị (Economic-Political Discussion) with 46,000 followers. However, the group was closed immediately after the arrests of its two admins. Their trial was planned on December 7 but suspended due to health issue of one of the two defendants.

As the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam prepares its 13th National Congress scheduled for January 2021, the regime continues its crackdown on local dissent and tightens control on social media, especially Facebook, the largest social network in Vietnam with around 60 million accounts.

So far this year, Vietnam has convicted 17 activists of subversion, “conducting anti-state propaganda” and “abusing democratic freedom” or “causing public disorders,” sentencing them to a total 90 years and three months in prison and 29 years of probation.

The regime is holding 31 other activists in pre-trial detention, most of them have been kept incommunicado since their arrest. Among them are prominent human rights defender and political blogger Pham Doan Trang, President of the professional group Independent Journalist Association of Vietnam (IJAVN) Pham Chi Dung and his deputy Nguyen Tuong Thuy.

Vietnam is the biggest prison for prisoners of conscience in Southeast Asia. Amnesty International said the number of prisoners of conscience in Vietnam is 170 while according to Defend the Defenders’ latest statistic, the number is 262 as of December 15.

Defend the Defenders

On December 21, the People’s Court of District 8 in Ho Chi Minh City found three local Facebookers named Nguyen Dang Thuong, Huynh Anh Khoa, and Tran Trong Khai guilty of “abusing democratic freedom” under Article 331 of the Criminal Code for administrating an open Facebook group discussing Vietnam’s socio-economic issues.

The jugde concluded that the trio have posted a number of statuses in the group with the content distorting the communist regime and defaming late President Ho Chi Minh and incumbent leaders General Secretary cum State President Nguyen Phu Trong and Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan of the country’s highest legislative body National Assembly. The court decided to sentence Mr. Thuong to 18 months in prison, Mr. Khoa- 15 months and Mr. Khai- one year.

The three Facebookers were without legal assistance during their pre-trial detention and the hearing. It is likely that they were forced by the police to give up legal consultation provided by the lawyers who were hired by their families, said Mrs. Pham Bao Ngoc, the wife of Mr. Khoa.

Mrs. Ngoc also told Defend the Defenders that she and other relatives of the three Facebookers were not permitted to enter the court areas. After fierce argument, police allowed them to enter but stay in the corridor of the courtroom which was filled with policemen and local officials. During the break and after the end of the trial, police prevented the relatives from having physical contacts with the trio, using Covid-19 as an excuse, Ngoc complained.

Along with imprisoning the trio, the judge also decided to confiscate their three computers and two cell phones with which they used to post “anti-state” articles.

Mr. Khoa and Mr. Thuong were arrested by security forces in HCM City on June 13 this year in relation to a group on Facebook in which its members held discussions about Vietnam’s socio-economic issues. It was unclear about the detention of Mr. Khai.

Khoa and Thuong are said to be admins of a Facebook group named Bàn luận Kinh tế-Chính trị (Economic-Political Discussion) with 46,000 followers. However, the group was closed immediately after the arrests of its two admins.

As the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam prepares its 13th National Congress scheduled for January 2021, the regime continues its crackdown on local dissent and tightens control on social media, especially Facebook, the largest social network in Vietnam with around 60 million accounts.

In 2020, Vietnam arrested 27 independent journalists and Facebookers for their online activities and charged them with “abusing democratic freedom,” “conducting anti-state propaganda” and subversion. The communist regime has sentenced ten activists to between nine months and 12 years in prison. In addition, the regime has imposed administrative fines up to VND15 million ($680) on hundreds of Facebookers nationwide for their online posts unfavorable for the regime after requesting them to delete their posts.

In Vietnam, the ruling communist party strictly controls the official media and social networks including Facebook become the main platform for local residents to express their opinions. However, the online crackdown has become more and more fierce.

On December 14, the Paris-based group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) issued a report saying Vietnam is among the first countries in the world holding the largest number of journalists and Facebooker, together with China, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria. Particularly, Vietnam holds seven journalists and 21 Facebookers behind the bar, and is listed at the 175th place among 180 countries in the RSF’s 2020 World Press Freedom Index.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has also listed Vietnam among the global biggest prisons for journalists with 15 journalists being imprisoned.

Vietnam is also the biggest jail for prisoners of conscience in Southeast Asia. According to Defend the Defenders’ latest statistics, Vietnam is holding 252 prisoners of conscience as of December 21, 2020.

Defend the Defenders

On January 5, 2021, the People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City sentenced 3 members of the Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam (IJAVN) to a total of 37 years in prison and nine years of probation on charges of “making, storing, spreading information, materials, items for the purpose of opposing the State of Socialist Republic of Vietnam” under Article 117 of the Criminal Code.

Pham Chi Dung, the IJAVN’s President, was sentenced to 15 years in prison and three years of probation; both Vice President Nguyen Tuong Thuy and another young member, Le Huu Minh Tuan, received 11 years in prison and three years of probation each.

This unjust trial does not comply with international standards for fair trials. The defendants were kept incommunicado for many months from their arrest until December 2020 when they were allowed to see their lawyers for the first time. During their less than 6 hours court trial, the judges did not listen to the lawyers’ arguments and the defendants’ testimonies.

The IJAVN is a civil society organization of independent journalists fighting for press freedom in Vietnam. Since its founding in 2014, its members and collaborators have published thousands of articles about the situation of Vietnam, frankly criticizing the communist regime and officials for their blatant violations of their citizens’ rights and serious socio-economic mismanagement.

This is exactly the reason that the Vietnamese communist authorities want to annihilate the IJAVN and suppress its members for many years, and the arrest and conviction of the three leaders reached the highest point.

Pham Chi Dung, Nguyen Tuong Thuy, and Le Huu Minh Tuan were sentenced to extremely heavy sentences for exercising their right to freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of association. Those are the basic rights stated in the Vietnamese Constitution and international human rights conventions that the Vietnamese communist government has signed and committed to honor.

Vietnam Human Rights Network, Defend the Defenders, and Human Rights Relief Foundation believe that Pham Chi Dung, Nguyen Tuong Thuy, and Le Huu Minh Tuan have not violated any Vietnamese law, and that their arrests, detentions and convictions are completely unjustified.

Therefore, we ask the communist government of Vietnam

To annul the verdicts, eliminate all accusations, and release immediately and unconditionally the three journalists;
To immediately stop the suppression of the IJAVN and other independent journalists and Facebookers, guarantee fundamental freedoms, in particular the rights to freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of the press and access to information;
To repeal Article 117 of the National Security provision of the Criminal Code which is used to suppress peaceful dissidents.

We call on independent civil society organizations and individuals as well as the international community to speak up for the freedom of the three recently convicted independent journalists.

End of the press release

Defend the Defenders

On December 22, authorities in the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho arrested female activist Le Thi Binh and charged her with “abusing democratic freedom” under Article 331 of the Criminal Code. They accuse her of posting anti-state statuses on her Facebook page.

According to her family, police and plainclothes agents kidnapped her when she went out. They took her back to her private residence where they conducted a house search without presence of her family.

The state-controlled media reported that the local police confiscated a large amount of evidence with the anti-state content without unvealing the details of what they robbed. Her family told Defend the Defenders that it received no documentation from the local authorities about her arrest, including the arrest order approved by the local Procuracy.

Ms. Binh, born in 1976, is a younger sister of former prisoner of conscience Le Minh The, who was arrested in October 2018 on the same allegation. Both are members of the unregistered group Hiến Pháp (Constitution) which aims to raise citizens’ rights by disseminating the country’s Constitution 2013. He was later sentenced to two years in prison, and completed his imprisonment in July this year.

Like her older brother and other members of Hiến Pháp group, Binh actively participated in the mass demonstration of tens of thousands of Vietnamese in Ho Chi Minh City and other locality on June 10, 2018 to protest the two bills on Special Economic Zones and Cyber Security.

After that, she has been under close surveillance of the Can Tho’s security forces, especially after the arrests of her brother and other members of Hiến Pháp in September-October, 2018. One of eight detained members of the group has warned about her arrest as police interrogators often asked them about Ms. Binh during their questioning.

However, Binh continues to post and share numerous articles about the country’s issues such as systemic corruption, widespread human rights abuse, and China’s violations of the country’s sovereignty in the East Sea (South China Sea).

She is likely to be held incommunicado during the pre-trial detention, the common practice applied by the communist regime in political cases. She faces imprisonment up to seven years in prison if she is convicted.

With Binh’s detention, the number of prisoners of conscience rose to 253, according to Defend the Defenders’ latest statistics.

Defend the Defenders

Jailed Vietnamese activist Hoang Duc Binh is being refused family visits by prison authorities angered by his insistence on his innocence and refusal to wear prison uniform, Binh’s brother told RFA’s Vietnamese Service on Wednesday.

Binh’s brother Hoang Nguyen went on Tuesday to visit Binh at the An Diem Prison in in central Vietnam’s Quang Nam province, where he is serving a 14-year sentence on charges connected with environmental protests four years ago, Nguyen said.

“Yesterday, I went to see my brother at the An Diem detention camp, but the prison guards would not let me in to see him, saying that he was refusing to wear his prison uniform,” Nguyen said, adding that he had been turned away for the same reason in October after last being able to see Binh in June.

Nguyen said authorities’ refusal to allow the visit was recorded in the prison’s visitors log by an officer named Huynh Quang Dai, who noted that Binh was refusing to wear a prison uniform in violation of “Article 6, Circular 14 promulgated on Feb. 10, 2020 by the Minister of Public Security.”

A longtime labor and environmental activist, Binh was arrested on May 15, 2017, by police officers who dragged him from his car more than a year after protests over the government’s response to a waste spill in Vietnam the year before by a Taiwan-owned Formosa Plastics Group steel plant.

The spill killed an estimated 115 tons of fish and left fishermen jobless in four coastal provinces. Binh was later handed a 14-year prison term in February 2018 for “abusing democratic freedoms” and “obstructing officials in the performance of their duties” under Articles 257 and 258 of Vietnam’s Penal Code.

In July 2018, he was transferred without notice given to his family from his prison in his home province Nghe An to the An Diem Prison in Quang Nam province some 300 miles away. Citing ill health behind bars, he has since petitioned to be moved back to a detention facility closer to home.

Binh, a blogger on environmental issues, had also served as vice president of the Independent Viet Labor Movement and is a member of a soccer group that protests China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea.

Vietnam has increasingly rounded up independent journalists, bloggers, and other dissident voices in recent months as authorities already intolerant of dissent seek to stifle critics in the run-up to the ruling Communist Party congress in January.

RFA

Vietnam’s communist regime has arrested another Facebooker and accused him of “conducting anti-state propaganda” under Article 117 of the country’s Criminal Code for his posts on the social network.

According to state-controlled media, police in the central province of Nghe An on November 6 arrested Mr. Nguyen Van Lam for his posts on his Facebook page named “Lâm Thời” with the content considered harmful for the regime.

Newspapers said that the province’s police have launched an investigation after receiving information from the province’s Department of Information and Communication which warned that the content of Facebooker Lâm Thời’s posts are defaming the regime and the local authorities as well as their officials and distort the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV)’s policies.

The police said they found 35 statuses of Facebooker Lâm Thời violating Vietnam’s laws. Of those, 3 are his live streams, 18 were produced by himself while 13 were shared from anti-government pages.

Mr. Lam, 50, will be held incommunicado for at least four months during the investigation period, and face imprisonment of between seven and 12 years in prison, or even up to 20 years, if is convicted.

Looking in his Facebook, Defend the Defenders found his posts cover a wide range of topics, from systemic corruption and widespread environmental pollutions to human rights abuse and China’s violations of Vietnam’s sovereignty in the East Sea (South China Sea). Lam was summoned to a police station in early December last year where he was requested to stop anti-regime posting, according to some newspapers.

He is among 29 activists and Facebookers who have been arrested so far this year for their peaceful activities as the ruling party is intensifying its crackdown on the local dissent prior to the party’s 13th National Congress slated for January next year. Among them, 14 were charged with “conducting anti-state propaganda” and seven were alleged of “abusing democratic freedom” under Article 331 of the Criminal Code.

Vietnam’s communist regime often uses articles in the National Security provisions of the Criminal Code to silence the local political dissidents and social activists who bravely exercise their basic rights including the right to freedom of expression which are enshrined in the country’s 2013 Constitution and the international treaties in which Vietnam is a signatory party.

Vietnam is among the largest prisons of prisoners of conscience in Southeast Asia. According to Defend the Defenders’ latest statistics, Vietnam’s communist regime is holding 260 prisoners of conscience in hard living conditions.

Vietnam is placed at 175th out of 180 countries in the 2020 World Press Freedom Index of the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF), imprisoning dozens of journalists and bloggers, including prominent activists Pham Doan Trang and Pham Chi Dung.

Defend the Defenders

Prosecutors in Vietnam have indicted three leaders of an independent journalist advocacy group for their writings critical of the one-party communist government, laying charges that could land the men in jail for two decades, RFA has learned.

Three leaders of the Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam (IJAVN) -- president Pham Chi Dung, vice president Nguyen Tuong Thuy, and editor Le Huu Minh Tuan – were charged Tuesday by the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Procuracy with making, storing and spreading information for the purpose of opposing the state.

If convicted of the charges in Article 117 of the Vietnamese Criminal Code, they could face between 10 and 20 years in prison.

Pham was arrested first in Nov. 2019, Nguyen this year in May, and Le in June. Another IJAVN member, independent journalist Pham Chi Thanh, was arrested in May 2020.

Defense attorney Nguyen Van Mieng told RFA Tuesday he met with Pham at the Ho Chi Minh City police detention camp and received the indictment from a procuracy representative named Dao Cong Lu.

“Mr. Dao Cong Lu asked Pham Chi Dung to sign to confirm that he received the indictment, but Pham wrote on it ‘I did not violate Vietnamese law,’ and then signed,” said Nguyen the defense lawyer.

“I also read the indictment… I told Pham Chi Dung that he was prosecuted under Article 117 and could be in jail from 10 to 20 years if he is found guilty. Mr. Pham told me that he did not sign any testimonies except for some, which he wrote that he did not violate Vietnamese law,” the lawyer said.

The lawyer then met with Nguyen Tuong Thuy, who was prior to his arrest a contributor to RFA’s Vietnamese Service.

“Mr. Nguyen Tuong Thuy said he would appeal this indictment because he says it has many mistakes,” said the attorney.

“He said the reason is because when they reviewed the stories posted on the Vietnam Times website, they forced him to sign that they were his. From these stories, they accused him of violating Article 117,” the lawyer said.

According to the lawyer, Nguyen said that there was confusion between him and another author because his name is similar to another author’s pen name. Five stories written by “Tuong Thuy” were not his own, he said.

Le Huu Minh Tuan, meanwhile, met with his lawyer Dang Dinh Manh. RFA contacted Dang by phone, but he said he was unable to talk.

According to the indictment, the procuracy accuses the IJAVN leaders of aiding and “abetting discontented individuals and eroding the people’s faith in the ruling party and state, causing confusion in public opinion, and sowing disunity among the party and state members.”

The document says they need to be treated strictly in order to educate and deter others.

The IJAVN was among more than 190 organizations that signed a May 5 letter to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres to take action to secure the release of jailed journalists worldwide amid the health risks posed to prison populations by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Vietnam, whose ruling Communist Party controls all media and tolerates no dissent, ranks 175th of 180 countries on RSF’s 2020 World Press Freedom Index. Many observers say the party is detaining so many writers and bloggers because it appears nervous about a major party congress in January.

RFA

Authorities in Vietnam’s southern province of Dong Nai have arrested local resident Nguyen Quang Khai on the allegation of “Deliberate disclosure of classified information; appropriation, trading, destruction of classified documents” under Article 337 of the Criminal Code with potential imprisonment of between two and ten years.

According to the notice sent to his family dated October 21, the Security Investigation Agency of the Dong Nai province’s Police Department detained Mr. Khai in an urgent case for the act of copying and disseminating state secrets on his Facebook account Khai Nguyen.

Mr. Khai’s family said that the Dong Nai police detained him to a police station in the morning of October 20 for interrogation and kept him overnight. The next day, police came to his private residence and handed over a notice of arrest to his family. Currently, the 51-year-old freelance worker is held in a temporary detention facility under the authority of the province’s Police Department.

Mr. Khai’s wife has a small food outlet and he helps her run the facility. He often shares and comments on the statuses of other Facebookers, mostly focusing on the corruption of state officials at different levels. He has also participated in charity events to support vulnerable people in their locality.

It is unclear what information he has shared can be classified as state secret information.

Dozens of Vietnamese Facebookers have been arrested or convicted with lengthy imprisonment for their online posts since the communist regime passed the Cyber Security in early 2018, according to Defend the Defenders’ observation.

Vietnam’s security forces have detained prominent human rights defender and democracy campaigner Pham Doan Trang as the communist government has tightened control to clear all political opposition while the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) is preparing for its 13th National Congress scheduled for early 2021.

Ms. Trang was arrested in the late night of October 6, few hours after the 24th Annual Human Rights Dialogue between the US and Vietnam held in Hanoi, when she was in a rent apartment in Ho Chi Minh City, the southern economic hub she has lived in the past three years while being chased by the Vietnamese security forces. According to her landlord, during the arrest, police officers showed the arrest warrant on which she was charged with “conducting anti-state propaganda” under Article 117 of the Criminal Code with a maximum punishment of 20 years in prison if she is convicted.

The state-controlled media has yet covered the arrest. It is expected that the Ministry of Public Security will announce the information about her detention soon as she is among high-risk human rights defenders in the Southeast Asian nation.

Ms. Trang, 42, is a former journalist for the official streamlined newswire VietnamNet. She left the outlet and went to study in the US and involved in activism, becoming one of the leading figures working for human rights and multi-party democracy in Vietnam.

She is a prominent and outspoken journalist, activist, and blogger whose writing covers a wide range of topics including LGBT rights, women’s rights, environmental issues, the territorial conflict between Vietnam and China, police brutality, suppression of activists, and law and human rights. Her book, Chính trị Bình dân (Politics for the Common People), a kind of primer for budding activists, was published in samizdat form in September 2017. She has produced a number of political books such as Phản kháng phi bạo lực (Non-violent Resistance), Politics of Police State, and Cẩm nang nuôi tù (Handbook for Prisoners’ Families). She is one of the authors of Việ Nam & Tranh chấp Biển Đông (Vietnam and the Conflict on the East Sea), published by Tri Thuc Publishing House in Vietnam.

On September 25, she and Vietnamese American Willian Nguyen publicized the 3rd edition of Dong Tam Report, the comprehensive report about the bloody attack of Vietnam’s security forces in Dong Tam commune, Hanoi on January 9 this year and the first-instance hearing to try 29 land petitioners who were charged with “murders” of three police officers and “resisting on-duty state officials” during the raid. It is worth noting that three out of the five co-authors of the first and the second editions of Dong Tam Report, former prisoner of conscience Can Thi Theu and her two sons Trinh Ba Phuong and Trinh Ba Tu were arrested on June 24, also charged with “conducting anti-state propaganda.”

Trang is also a street activist who is committed to peaceful protest. She has joined demonstrations outside police stations and at airports when fellow activists were detained, participated in nationalist protests about China’s violations of Vietnam’s sovereignty in the East Sea (South China Sea), and pro-environmental marches. She has been beaten and detained many times in the past five years.

Trang is the editor for the website Vietnam Right Now, which aims to distribute “objective, accurate, and timely information on the current social and political conditions in Vietnam today.” She is also a co-founder and an editor of the Vietnam Legal Initiative, a US-based NGO working to promote human rights, civil rights, and democracy in Vietnam.

Her writing and activism have addressed a broad human rights agenda, from the rights to freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, and other rights, including the right to remain silent. As a journalist and blogger, she also focuses on the role of media in social and political life and remains especially concerned with freedom of information on the internet and freedom of the press.

In 2018, Trang was awarded the Homo Homini Award by the Czech-based human rights organization People In Need which considers her “one of the leading figures of the contemporary Vietnamese dissent. She uses plain words to fight the lack of freedom, corruption, and the despotism of the communist regime.”

Last year, the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) presented her with Award For Work to Improve Journalistic Freedom. In March this year, the Liberal Publishing House under her leadership was honored with Prix Voltaire by the International Publishers’ Association.

Responding to her arrest, Phil Robertson, deputy chief of Southeast Asia Office of Human Rights Watch stated “Vietnam’s scorched earth response to political dissent is on display for all to see with the arrest of prominent blogger and author Pham Doan Trang. Despite suffering years of systemic government harassment, including severe physical attacks, she has remained faithful to her principles of peaceful advocacy for human rights and democracy. Her thoughtful approach to reforms, and demands for people’s real participation in their governance, are messages the Vietnam government should listen to and respect, not repress. Human Rights Watch strongly condemns Vietnam’s arrest of Pham Doan Trang. Every day she spends behind bars is a grave injustice that violates Vietnam’s international human rights commitments and brings dishonor to the government. Governments around the world and the UN must prioritize her case, speak out loudly and consistently on her behalf, and demand her immediate and unconditional release.”

The ruling Communist Party of Vietnam’s Central Committee is conducting the 13th Plenum in Hanoi on October 5-10 to prepare for the party 13th National Congress slated in early January. Months ahead of the congress which takes for every five years, Vietnam’s security forces have tightened social security and intensified crackdown on political dissidents, social activists, and human rights defenders.

So far this year, Vietnam has arrested 25 activists and 29 Dong Tam land petitioners, raising the number of prisoners of conscience to 258, according to the latest statistics of Defend the Defenders.

Defend the Defenders

On September 17, Hanoi security forces detained prominent dissident Nguyen Quang A for several hours in a bid to prevent him from meeting with US Ambassador in Vietnam Daniel Kritenbrink.

Dr. A, who is the head of the unregistered group Vietnam Civil Society, said the American Ambassador invited him to a coffee meeting in his private residence in Hanoi at 3.30 pm on Thursday. He planned to leave his house early to go to a bank before heading to the meeting. However, when he tried to go at 2 pm, he recognized a group of ten policemen staying near his house in Gia Lam district.

Realizing that the policemen were waiting for him, Dr. A intended to go back to his house to inform the diplomat about the police blockade, however, the policemen detained him and took him to a car, and the vehicle headed to the Ngoc Thuy ward police station, where he was held many times before.

Dr. A strongly protested the police’s move, saying his detention is illegal. He knows that their purpose is to block him from meeting with the US Ambassador but the police officers asked him about his posts on Facebook.

A told them that this detention is the 18th in recent years, and he will not answer any question from them. At 5.30 pm, the police released him.

Along with blocking Dr. A from going abroad, Vietnam’s security forces have detained him many times in a bid to prevent him from meeting with foreign diplomats from the EU and the US as well as other Western countries.

Defend the Defenders

Authorities in Vietnam have arrested a Facebook user for sharing his grievances about how the local government has handled a dispute over his family’s land, RFA has learned.

Le Van Hai, from Binh Dinh province in the country’s South Central Coast region was charged with “abusing freedom and democratic rights to infringe upon the interests of the state” under Article 33 of Vietnam’s 2015 Penal Code.

Local media outlet Youth Online reported the arrest Friday and it was confirmed by police in Binh Dinh.

According to the report, Le was detained over a period of two months, and police conducted a search of his residence in the coastal city of Qui Nhon.

The police investigation into Le’s case states that he often used his Facebook account to share or post many stories that slandered or offended the prestige of Vietnamese government leaders, including communist party members and provincial officials.

Le had also sent many complaints to Binh Dinh authorities asking for compensation payments because his family’s house and land had been confiscated to build a wastewater treatment plant in Qui Nhon.

When authorities denied the request, he shared his frustration on Facebook.

While all land in Vietnam is ultimately held by the state, land confiscations have become a flashpoint as residents accuse the government of pushing small landholders aside in favor of lucrative real estate projects, and of paying too little in compensation to farming families displaced by development.

Le’s case came to light after a court in Hanoi sentenced two vilagers to death, and gave several others long sentences, in the trial of 29 villagers over a deadly land-rights clash in January at the Dong Tam commune near Vietnam’s capital.

Three police officers were killed in the Jan. 9 clash when they were attacked by petrol bombs and fell into a concrete shaft while running between two houses. The village elder and father of the two condemned convicts also died in the raid.

Vietnam, with a population of 92 million people, of which 55 million are estimated to be users of Facebook, has been consistently rated “not free” in the areas of internet and press freedom by Freedom House, a U.S.-based watchdog group.

Dissent is not tolerated in the communist nation, and authorities routinely use a set of vague provisions in the penal code to detain dozens of writers and bloggers.

RFA

Vietnam�s security forces continue the persecution against the unregistered professional group Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam (IJAVN) after arresting its key members, conducting summoning some other members for interrogation in recent days.

Mr. Hoang Van Hung from Hanoi said he was summoned by the Security Investigation Agency of the Hanoi Police Department to its office on September 1 for questioning about his membership to the organization and his activities as well as writing for its website vietnamthoibao.org.

During the interrogation, Mr. Hung admitted that he is a member of IJAVN and has some articles posted on its website, however, he did not remember details of his writing. He refused to give other details, including the passwords of his accounts on Gmail and other online applications.

Several days later, Mr. Nguyen Thien Nhan, a member of the IJAVN�s Board Management was also summoned to the Security Investigation Agency of Ho Chi Minh City�s Police Department for questioning on September 8. During the interrogation which lasted from 8 am to 5 pm, police officers gave numerous questions about the IJAVN and his involvement in the organization. However, he did not give details as the investigators requested him to keep the content of the interrogation unpublicized.

Nhan said before going to the questioning meeting, he gave his phones and laptop to his trusted friend so the interrogators had no access to them. Police told him that he has to undergo other interrogations in the future.

The IJAVN was established in 2014 with the aim to work for freedom of the press in the one-party regime. Numerous articles of its members have criticized the regime on various issues, including human rights abuse, systemic corruption, widespread environmental pollution due to the regime�s unstable economic development, the government weak response to China�s violations to the country�s sovereignty in the East Sea (South China Sea), bad economic policies, etc.

The communist government probably is affected by such articles so it is striving to silence the IJAVN. Along with using technology to attack IJAVN�s website, Vietnam�s security forces have been implementing series of measures to persecute its members, from preventing them to gather or meet with foreign diplomats to arresting a number of its key members.

In early November last year, HCM City Police Department arrested its President Dr. Pham Chi Dung, who was honored with the Information Hero award of the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF), and charged with �conducting anti-state propaganda� under Article 117 of the Criminal Code with imprisonment of between seven to 12 years or even up to 20 years. Next year, on May 23, the police arrested acting President Nguyen Tuong Thuy after detaining blogger Pham Chi Thanh (penname Pham Thanh) two days earlier. The two independent writers at their 70-year age were charged with the same allegation. The persecution against the organization continues with the arrest of another member named Le Huu Minh Tuan on June 12, and police threaten to detain more members of the organization in a bid to expand the case.

Vietnam, placed at 175th out of 180 countries in the Press Freedom Index of RSF in 2020, has arrested 18 bloggers so far this year, 12 of them were charged with �conducting anti-state propaganda� and four others were alleged of �abusing democratic freedom� for criticizing the communist government.

Defend the Defenders

Well-known human rights activist Huynh Thuc Vy has reported that authorities in Vietnam�s Central Highlands province of Dak Lak have requested a local Catholic school not to accept her 4-year-old daughter as a reprisal for her political activities.

On September 1, Vy took her kid to the school to start the academic year. The kid had been enrolled here since the beginning of this year. However, a nun at the school told the young mother that the school cannot accept the kid because �Many people had told me about you, now I can no longer accept Tue Nha in our school.�

The nun added �� the school and I will be negatively affected if we admit your daughter� without specifying who from the local authorities have made the threats.

However, in an interview given to an independent journalist, the nun from the Huong Duong kindergarten in Vinh Duc diocese has rejected all Vy�s accusations, saying she is just concerned about Vy�s current status of being closely chased by the local police.

Vy, who was sentenced to 33 months of prison for �insulting Vietnam�s communist flag� in 2018 but her imprisonment was suspended due to her maternity for their second child, said several years ago, a local policeman threatened them not to permit their first kid to attend local schools. The couple is preparing for that but still want to send their daughter in order to help it make friends with other kids.

Her husband Le Duy has said that the couple was preparing for that so they will teach their kid at home with an American program different from the program offered by the communist regime which is mostly propaganda for the ruling communist party.

Vy is born in a dissident family. Her father Huynh Ngoc Tuan was a former prisoner of conscience, spending ten years in prison after being convicted of �conducting anti-state propaganda� for criticizing the communist regime. She was a co-founder of the unregistered group Vietnam Women for Human Rights and held its presidency for many years in the past.

Due to her human rights activities and political engagement, Vy, who was honored with the Human Rights Watch (HRW)�s Hellman-Hammett award in 2012 for her writing, has been under persecution by the communist regime for years. She was kidnapped and beaten as well as being chased by authorities in Ho Chi Minh City and her native province of Quang Nam. In Lam Dong, she has been regularly summoned for questioning. Authorities have also striving to halt their economic activities.

A number of international human rights groups such as the New York-based Human Rights Watch, the London-based Amnesty International, and the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) have called on Vietnam to stop its persecution against Mrs. Vy, who is considered one of the talented young activists in the Southeast Asian nation.

Vy is among 275 prisoners of conscience to Defend the Defenders� list.

In Vietnam, the communists are striving to keep the country under a one-party regime and make all tricks and measures to silence the local dissent, including long-term imprisonment, de facto under house arrest, summoning to police stations for interrogation and economic blockade as well as harassing their relatives.

Defend the Defenders

The father of a Vietnamese prisoner awaiting trial for his role in a deadly clash over land rights outside Hanoi has been turned away at the city�s police headquarters after he inquired about the condition of his son, who has been on hunger strike for over 20 days, he told RFA.

Trinh Ba Khiem, father of detained activist Trinh Ba Tu, told RFA�s Vietnamese Service on Friday that he and a group of residents from the city�s Duong Noi district visited the Public Security Ministry�s inspection office in Hanoi on Aug 26.

�The police received me along with three Duong Noi residents. I asked the ministry�s officers to allow me to call my son to ask about his health,� said Trinh Ba Khiem.

�If my son is on a hunger strike, I will tell him to stop, but a police officer, Colonel Le Son, said he could not comply with my request,� he said.

Trinh Ba Tu was arrested June 24 in Hoa Binh province, while his mother Can Thi Theu and older brother Trinh Ba Phuong were arrested on the same day in Hanoi. The elder Trinh brother and his mother are detained at the Cham Mat detention center in Hoa Binh, while the older Trinh is being held at the Hanoi No. 1 detention center.

The three are charged having been outspoken in social media postings about the Dong Tam clash, the violent Jan. 9 police raid that involved 3,000 officers intervening in a long-running dispute over a military airport construction site about 25 miles south of the capital.

During the clash, Dong Tam village elder Le Dinh Kinh, 84, was shot and killed by police, while three officers lost their lives.

The Trinh brothers and their mother are known to have openly offered information to foreign embassies and other international figures to try to raise awareness of the incident.

Commissary records at the Hoa Binh detention camp show that both the younger Trinh and his mother stopped buying food on Aug. 6, the Trinh family patriarch said.

RFA reported that he had Wednesday visited Cham Mat to check on his son, but he was turned away then as well. He said that the Hanoi police on Friday passed the buck back to Hoa Binh.

�After I left the office, Colonel Son told the three others that we should send a form to the Hoa Binh province police office to have an indirect meeting with Trinh Ba Tu, meaning I would be able to see my son through a glass window, but we wouldn�t be allowed to talk to each other,� he said, adding that the group plans to file a petition with Hoa Binh police on Monday.

Defense lawyer Dang Dinh Manh Thursday sent a letter to Hoa Binh�s investigation center and to the detention center in an attempt to confirm that Trinh Ba Tu was on a hunger strike.

�Are there any unusual reasons that have caused Trinh Ba Tu to choose to react with a hunger strike?� Dang wrote in the letter.

Other lawyers petitioned the two agencies to �urgently consider the issue and take the appropriate actions to avoid dangerous consequences that could occur.�

While all land in Vietnam is ultimately held by the state, land confiscations have become a flashpoint as residents accuse the government of pushing small landholders aside in favor of lucrative real estate projects, and of paying too little in compensation.

Several international organizations have voiced concern about the Dong Tam case, calling on the Vietnamese government to be independent and transparent in their investigation.

A group of 29 detained for their involvement in the clash are set to face trial Sept. 7 on charges of murder or opposing police on duty.

RFA

The wife of a Vietnamese activist is refusing to comply with a police summons to discuss the case of her husband, Trinh Ba Phuong, one of three detained members of the Trinh family who are awaiting trial over a deadly land rights clash outside Hanoi, her father-in-law told RFA Monday.

Trinh Ba Phuong�s wife, Do Thi Thu, gave birth to their child around the time of his June 24 arrest along with his brother, Trinh Ba Tu, and mother, Can Thi Theu, for spreading information critical of a police raid early this year to quash a long-running dispute over a military airport construction site at Dong Tam.

Police arrived at Do�s house in Hanoi�s Duong Noi district on Sunday to deliver the summons.

�The communist police yesterday summoned my daughter-in-law again, but she said she would not to go to police station. She refused to receive the summons, no matter what the communists want her to do,� Do�s father in law Trinh Ba Khiem told RFA�s Vietnamese Service.

�I think they want to investigate Trinh Ba Phuong�s case. My daughter-in-law just gave birth two months ago around when her husband was arrested, that�s why she decided not to go to police station,� he said.

Do�s interaction with the police Sunday was livestreamed on her Facebook account. The video showed police officers in plainclothes delivering the summons, which Do refused to sign for. She also told them she would not appear at the local police station on Sept. 3 as requested.

The three detained members of the Trinh family had been outspoken in social media postings about the Jan. 9 Dong Tam clash, in which 3,000 police stormed barricaded protesters� homes at a construction site about 25 miles south of the capital, killing a village elder. Three police officers died in the battle.

The Trinhs openly offered information to foreign embassies and other international figures to try to raise awareness of the incident.

Bureaucratic runaround

Trinh Ba Khiem also told RFA Monday that he encountered yet another stumbling block in his attempt to visit his other detained son, Trinh Ba Tu, after the family was told he had begun a hunger strike in early August.

RFA previously reported that the Trinh family patriarch had attempted to meet his younger son at the Cham Mat detention center in Hoa Binh province where he and his mother are being held.

Joined by an entourage of residents from Hanoi�s Duong Noi district, Trinh was last week turned away by camp police who threatened that they would be beaten by gangsters.

The group later visited the Ministry of Public Security in Hanoi, who told them to submit a letter to the police in Hoa Binh province to request an �indirect meeting� with his son, where they would be able to see each other through a glass window but would not be able to talk.

Trinh Ba Khiem told RFA Monday that the letter alone was not enough.

�This morning around 10 a.m. I and several residents of Duong Noi district arrived at the Hoa Binh province police department. Two residents and I met with an officer named Dinh Le Hoa, who requested an official testimony from the police at the local commune station confirming that [I] and Trinh Ba Tu are in a father-son relationship,� he said.

�I went back home and then to the commune police, but they did not confirm [our relationship] so my letter was not sent to the detention camp and I could not meet with my son,� he added.

The reason for Trinh Ba Tu�s hunger strike remains unclear. RFA first learned of the strike last week from Trinh Ba Tu�s sister Trinh Thi Thao, who said that an unknown person had told her that her brother had stopped eating.

RFA attempted to confirm the hunger strike with the detention camp, but officers there said they were not at liberty to provide information. The detention camp�s commissary records show that Trinh and his mother stopped buying food on Aug. 6.

In an earlier flare up of the Dong Tam dispute that goes back to 1980, farmers detained 38 police officers and local officials during a weeklong standoff in April 2017. Three months later, the Hanoi Inspectorate rejected the farmer�s claims that 47 hectares (116 acres) of their farmland was seized for the military-run Viettel Group�Vietnam�s largest mobile phone operator�without adequate compensation.

While all land in Vietnam is ultimately held by the state, land confiscations have become a flashpoint as residents accuse the government of pushing small landholders aside in favor of lucrative real estate projects, and of paying too little in compensation.

International organizations have voiced concern about the Dong Tam case, calling on the Vietnamese government to hold an independent and transparent investigation.

RFA