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Vietnam has arrested and prosecuted eight people using Article 117 since the beginning of this year. Human rights groups say the provision allows the government to gag any dissent.

A university in the central coastal city of Danang has fired a lecturer for her “wrong statements” about Vietnam’s COVID-19 fighting measures.

Duy Tan University made the announcement Monday after a student posted on Facebook a video of the lecturer, Tran Thi Tho, part of the university’s English faculty, arguing with the student about government relief for those affected by the pandemic.

Tho said in the video that the government of Vietnam is letting people struggle with very limited help while the pandemic is raging all over the country.

She highlighted how thousands of people are fleeing the country’s southern provinces and Ho Chi Minh City on motorbikes to return to their hometowns thousands of kilometers away, just to escape the virus.

The student in the video accused Tho of disliking Vietnam and promoting negative stereotypes against Asian people.

The university has also reported the lecturer to the Ministry of Police, who said they are investigating the case.

Pham Minh Hoang, a former professor at Ho Chi Minh City Polytechnic, told RFA that dissent should be allowed in academia.

“People who dare to speak their criticisms at a university are a must. Schools, especially universities are obliged to train students into people who have their own opinions, not to become machines just acting on demand,” Hoang said.

“If we continue this way, when everything must be molded and any person who speaks their opinions differently from those of the government and state must face severe consequences, then it means Vietnamese will never strive for anything,” said Hoang.

‘Despicable’ firing

Nguyen Vi Yen, a Vietnamese student studying in Europe, wrote on Facebook that she felt Duy Tan University’s firing of Tho was “despicable.”

“Duy Tan does not deserve to be called a university, let alone its own name ‘Duy Tan,’ which means reform,” she said.

Tho declined to comment to RFA about her case.

Education Minister Nguyen Kim Son told the state-run Tuoi Tre newspaper before the firing that “the education system management needs to encourage criticism about social issues in general and educational policies in particular.”

Though the country struggles to effectively contain a fourth wave of the virus, Vietnam had been relatively successful compared to other countries during the first three waves. Of more than 224,000 confirmed cases during the pandemic, more than 220,000 were diagnosed since April 27, the start of the fourth wave.

With Vietnam’s media all following Communist Party orders, “the only sources of independently-reported information are bloggers and independent journalists, who are being subjected to ever-harsher forms of persecution,” the press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says in its 2021 Press Freedoms Index.

Measures taken against them now include assaults by plainclothes police, RSF said in its report, which placed Vietnam at 175 out of 180 countries surveyed worldwide, a ranking unchanged from last year.

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. Arrests continue in 2021.

Authorities in Vietnam have arrested a Facebook user for posting mild criticism of government COVID-19 policies, while a university fired a lecturer after a student shared on her comments faulting Hanoi’s pandemic response on the social media platform.

The Tien Giang People’s Procuracy announced Tuesday that it would prosecute Tran Hoang Huan, 33, on charges of making, storing and spreading or propagandizing information or documents against the state under in accordance with the Article 117 of the Penal Code, according state media.

Huan, a resident of My Tho city in the far southern province of Tien Giang, had used a Facebook account under the name Huan Tran to post content against the Vietnamese Communist Party and the state on 186 occasions.

His Facebook account remains active and many of his recent posts opposed the use of Chinese-made COVID-19 vaccines, which many Vietnamese oppose because of their perceived low quality and because of longstanding animosity toward China over history and territorial issues.

Huan had earlier called on the government to provide relief to citizens by waiving electricity and water bills during the pandemic.

“The arrest and detention of Tran Hoang Huan marks yet another chapter in the grim tale of Vietnam’s crackdown on freedom of expression online,” Ming Yu Hah, the deputy regional director for campaigns at Amnesty International, told RFA.

“Huan had used his Facebook page to share information about COVID-19 vaccines, lockdowns and to call on the Vietnam government to subsidize electricity and water fees while many Vietnamese are facing economic hardships due to the pandemic. The Vietnamese authorities should listen to these calls, not repress them,” she said.

Ming Yu Hah said authorities had used Article 117 to detain Huan on “vague accusations” of causing public confusion or defaming the government so they could prevent dissent.

“Huan’s name now joins an ever-expanding list of Vietnamese activists detained merely for sharing peaceful criticism,” she said, and called for the release of Huan and other detainees.

“It is imperative that Vietnam’s leadership starts taking a radically different approach to human rights, and freedom of expression in particular,” she said.

Courts in Vietnam on Tuesday handed down prison terms to two Facebook users charged with posting articles opposing the country’s one-party communist state and calling for violence against judicial officials and police officers, according to state media reports.

In north-central Vietnam’s Nghe An province, Nguyen Van Lam, 51, was sentenced to nine years in prison for posting anti-state writings and sharing videos and other content, including broadcasts by RFA, considered politically subversive.

He was charged under Article 117 of Vietnam’s 2015 Criminal Code for “creating, storing, disseminating information and materials against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” a provision of Vietnamese law frequently used by authorities to stifle government critics and other peaceful voices of dissent.

Persons convicted of crimes under the law can be sentenced to from five to 20 years in prison.

According to the Nghe An Police Investigative Agency, Lam had posted numerous stories, images, and videos violating Vietnamese law from 2017 to November 2020, including livestream videos and stories from RFA and other online sources, and 18 stories written by himself on his mobile phone.

Among Lam’s posts available online, several mock authorities with sharp comments on news reports by RFA or other outlets.

On Oct. 26, 2020, Lam wrote: “The Vietnamese people do ask the international organizations, (and) Interpol to monitor the political and economic mechanism (of Vietnam).”

These comments had “smeared the regime, insulted Party and State leaders, called for a multi-party and pluralistic government, and distorted the actual situation in Vietnam,” state media reports said.

News reports did not mention the date of Lam’s arrest or whether he was assisted by a defense lawyer at his trial.

At least 14 Vietnamese people have been imprisoned following conviction on charges filed under Article 117 since January 2021. Pham Chi Dung, president of the Vietnam Independent Journalists Association has drawn the heaviest term so far this year at 15 years, followed by Nguyen Tuong Thuy, vice president of the Association, who was jailed for 11 years.

An independent Vietnamese journalist hunted by police for online writings called “anti-State” by authorities has been arrested after evading capture for more than a month, RFA has learned.

Le Van Dung, also known as Le Dung Vova, was taken into custody on Thursday by Hanoi police, state media reports said on July 1, adding that Dung had not resisted arrest and had shown a “cooperative attitude” when taken by police.

Speaking to RFA, Dung’s wife Bui Thi Hue confirmed news of Dung’s arrest, saying she had been informed of his capture by an acquaintance.

“I received the news from someone I know that my husband was arrested this morning,” Hue said. “They only told me about the arrest, though, and did not say they had seen it happen with their own eyes. I am just saying what I was told.”

Dung, also known as Le Dung Vova—owner of the Facebook-based online CHTV news channel—was away from home when police tried on May 25 to place him under arrest on charges under Article 117 of Vietnam’s Penal Code for reporting on corruption, land disputes, and other issues deemed politically sensitive by authorities.

Unable to arrest Dung, police left instead with a laptop computer and two mobile phones belonging to his wife Bui Thi Hue, Hue told RFA’s Vietnamese Service on May 25. Vietnamese authorities later issued a special warrant calling for Dung’s arrest, placing notices in major media outlets around the country.

Article 117 of Vietnam’s Penal Code imposes penalties for “creating, storing, and disseminating information, documents, items, and publications opposing the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” and is frequently used by authorities to stifle peaceful critics of the country’s one-party communist state.

Harsh forms of persecution

With Vietnam’s media all following Communist Party orders, “the only sources of independently-reported information are bloggers and independent journalists, who are being subjected to ever-harsher forms of persecution,” the press freedoms watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says in its 2021 Press Freedoms Index.

Measures taken against them now include assaults by plainclothes police, RSF said in its report, which placed Vietnam at 175 out of 180 countries surveyed worldwide, a ranking unchanged from last year.

“To justify jailing them, the Party resorts to the criminal codes, especially three articles under which ‘activities aimed at overthrowing the government,’ ‘anti-state propaganda’ and ‘abusing the rights to freedom and democracy to threaten the interests of the state’ are punishable by long prison terms,” the rights 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. But arrests continue in 2021.

Authorities in Vietnam’s central province of Quang Ngai have arrested three local Facebookers on the allegation of “abusing democratic freedom” under Article 331 of the Criminal Code for their posts on the social network most popular in the Southeast Asian nation.

Citing the information from the province’s Police Department, the state-controlled media reported that 34-year-old man Bach Van Hien, 38-year-old Phung Thanh Tuyen, and 41-year-old Le Trung Thu were detained on June 30. Their private residency was also searched by the local police.

The three men will be held in the next two months at least for investigation on the allegation of posting statuses with content criticizing the regime’s agencies including the People’s Court, the police, the army, the inspectorate, the Vietnam Central Television (VTV), and the Propaganda agency as well as the regime’s leaders.

Recently, Vietnam’s authoritarian regime has arrested many Facebookers with charges of “conducting anti-state propaganda” or “abusing democratic freedom” in a bid to silence the regine’s critics. The first charge may take the convicted ones to between seven and 12 years in prison while the second allegation would take the convicted ones to stay imprisoned up to seven years.

Last month, within a week, Vietnam’s authoritarian regime convicted two Facebookers named Dang Ngoc Minh and Cao Van Dung of “conducting anti-state propaganda” for their posts and sentenced them to seven and nine years in prison, respectively.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls for the immediate release of Mai Phan Loi, a Vietnamese journalist who once ran an official law magazine but who, for the past five years, has provided his fellow citizens with reliable, independent information about economic, social and environmental issues. All charges against him must be dropped, RSF said. Hanoi police officially announced the investigation against Mai Phan Loi on 2 July, one week after he was initially arrested on 24 June, on a warrant with the extremely vague charge of “tax evasion,” which carries a possible seven-year prison sentence under article 200 of the penal code. It did not specify the nature of the alleged crimes or the amount supposedly evaded.

Loi made a name for himself in the Vietnamese blogosphere thanks above all to a series of interviews he conducted with experts on economic, social and environmental issues in Vietnam. Before that, he was the deputy editor of Phap Luat (The Law), a state-controlled magazine covering legal issues.

The authorities refused to renew Loi’s press card five years ago after he investigated the mysterious circumstances in which CASA 8983, a Vietnamese air force reconnaissance plane, disappeared in June 2016.

“We are not fooled by the tax fraud accusation brought against Mai Phan Loi,” said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk. “Everything indicates that it is just a pretext to silence a journalist who tried to do his job to inform his fellow citizens properly. We demand his immediate release and the withdrawal of this clearly trumped-up charge.”

Editorial freedom

The same charge of tax evasion was also used to arrest another expert on legal issues, Dang Dinh Bach, on the same day as Loi’s arrest.

As well as a journalist, Loi also made a name for himself as a defender of editorial freedom in the Vietnamese media. It was as such that he was included in a group of six civil society representatives who met then US President Barack Obama during Obama’s visit to Hanoi in May 2016.

Loi joins the growing list of Vietnamese journalists who began working for the state media and were arrested after later choosing to work freely and independently. The victims of the wave of arrests of such journalists, which began more than a year ago, include Pham Doan Trang, a recipient of the RSF Press Freedom Prize in 2019.

Vietnam is ranked 175th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2021 World Press Freedom Index.

On July 9, the People’s Court of Hanoi found political blogger Pham Chi Thanh (aka Pham Thanh) guilty of “conducting anti-state propaganda” under Article 117 of Vietnam’s Criminal Code for his online posts criticizing the country’s authoritarian regime.

After two and half hours, the first-instance hearing ended with the final judgment of five and half years imprisonment followed by five years of probation, his lawyer Ha Huy Son said on his Facebook page.

According to the indictment, Mr. Thanh’s writing including a book titled Thế thiên hành đạo hay Đại nghịch bất đạo (Holder of Mandate of Heaven or Great Immoral Traitor) and other posts on his blog Bà Đầm Xoè contains the information defaming the authoritarian regime’s leaders and distorting the regime’s policies.

In his defense statement, lawyer Son pointed out a number of shortcomings of the state agencies involved in the case, including the Hanoi City’s Department of Information and Communication which verificated the content of Mr. Thanh’s writing. However, the judge did not pay attention to the lawyer’s defense statement.

Mr. Thanh is a retired reporter and editor of the state-controlled Voice of Vietnam Radio (VOV). He has written several books critical of the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam and its leaders, including late President Ho Chi Minh and incumbent General Secretary cum President Nguyen Phu Trong. His posts on his blog Bà Đầm Xoè are mainly critical of the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam and its leader Trong. His latest book Holder of Mandate of Heaven or Great Immoral Traitor talked about activities of incumbent General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong of the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam, which according to the author are harmful for the nation and beneficial for the red China.

On his blog Bà Đầm Xoè, Thanh also posted his writings on politics and social issues, including China’s violations of Vietnam’s sovereignty in the East Sea (South China Sea) and the weak response of the Vietnamese Communist regime, systemic corruption, widespread environmental pollution, human rights violations, etc.

His arrest on May 21 last year is part of Vietnam’s intensified crackdown on local dissent before and after the 13th National Congress of the ruling party.

One day before the trial, the New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a statement calling on Vietnam’s authoritarian state to release Mr. Thanh immediately and unconditionally since Mr. Thanh peacefully exercised his right to freedom of expression.

Mr. Thanh is the 17th activist being sentenced in 2021, according to Defend the Defenders’ statistics. Among others are President Pham Chi Dung and Vice President Nguyen Tuong Thuy of the unregistered professional group Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam who were also convicted of “conducting anti-state propaganda” and sentenced to 15 years and 11 years in prison, respectively.

According to Amnesty International, Vietnam is the largest jailer of prisoners of conscience with 170 activists being jailed while the latest statistics of Defend the Defenders shows that Hanoi is holding at least 258 prisoners of conscience. Reporters Without Borders regularly ranks Vietnam among the worst five countries on press freedom withhigh number of jailed bloggers. Vietnam’s communist government always denies it has any prisoners of conscience, saying it imprisons only law violators.

Vietnam’s authoritarian regime continues its crackdown on the local dissent even after the country’s new leadership for the next five years has been formed and the latest victim is former prisoner of conscience and democracy campaigner Do Nam Trung.

According to his girlfriend, Mr. Trung was caught by security officers of Nam Dinh province when he was on his way to a workplace in the morning of July 6. Later, police used his keys to break into his rent apartment in Hanoi which he shares with his girlfriend when she was sleeping. She reported on Facebook that around 20 police officers broke into their private residence, conducting house searches and confiscating some personal items.

Like in other political cases, Mr. Trung will be held incommunicado for at least four months. During the investigation period which may last two years or longer, he will not be permitted to meet with lawyers or his relatives.

According to the police notice, the 40-year-old human rights advocate and democracy campaigner is charged with “conducting anti-state propaganda” under Article 117 of the Criminal Code with potential imprisonment between seven years and 12 years, even to 20 years in prison.

Trung is among active participants in peaceful demonstrations in Hanoi in the last decade to protest China’s violations of Vietnam’s sovereignty in the East Sea (South China Sea) and demand human rights and multi-party democracy in the Southeast Asian country.

In 2014, while visiting southern provinces during the anti-China demonstration wave, Trung and two other activists was arrested and charged with “causing public disorder.” Later, he was convicted and sentenced to 14 months in prison.

Trung is a member of Brotherhood for Democracy, an organization co-founded by prominent human rights activist Nguyen Van Dai, who was forced to live in exile in Germany in 2018 after being sentenced to 15 years in prison. The organization was the main target of the persecution of the authoritarian regime in 2015-2020, with a dozen of key members being arrested and convicted of subversion and later were sentenced to between seven and 15 years in prison.

In the past few years, Trung was under constant harassment of security forces both in Hanoi and his home province of Nam Dinh.

Trung has been the 18th activist being arrested since the beginning of this year. Seven of them, including prominent human rights advocate Nguyen Thuy Hanh, were charged with “conducting anti-state propaganda.” The remaining 11 were alleged of “abusing democratic freedom” under Article 331 of the Criminal Code, with potential imprisonment up to seven years.

According to Defend the Defenders’ latest statistics, Vietnam is holding at least 259 prisoners of conscience. Hanoi always denies holding prisoners of conscience but only law violators.

Vietnam’s state media has reported that on June 9, the People’s Court of Quang Ngai province found a local resident named Cao Van Dung guilty 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.

Mr. Dung, 53, was reportedly sentenced to nine years in prison and three years of probation as the judge decided that from February 2019 he used his Facebook account “Dung Caovan” for writing and sharing many statuses with the content harmful for the regime and affects social orders.

He was said to have formed an online secret group named “Brotherhood for democracy and human rights for Vietnamese.” His hard sentence was likely also due to his participation in the mass demonstration on June 10, 2018 where tens of thousands of people gathered on streets in Ho Chi Minh City and other localities in the southern and central regions to protest the Cyber Security and the Special Economic Zones bills.

It is unclear when Mr. Dung was arrested. It is unknown Mr. Dung had legal assistance during his pre-trial detention and the first-instance hearing.

His conviction is the second within a week. One week earlier, the People’s Court of the Mekong Delta province of Hau Giang sentenced Facebooker Dang Hoang Minh to seven years in prison followed by two years of probation. Mr. Minh was said to have posted numerous statuses on his Facebook account with the content harmful for the regime.

Vietnam’s authoritarian regime strictly controls the media and persecutes independent journalists and bloggers. Dozens of Facebookers and bloggers have been imprisoned while others are under regular harassment. The country has been placed in the groups of the countries in the bottom of the Press Freedom Index of the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) for many years. In 2020, it was ranked 175th among 180 countries in the index.

In early 2021, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Vietnam is among the world biggest prisons for journalists, with 12 journalists and Facebookers being imprisoned.

According to Defend the Defenders’ latest statistics, Vietnam is holding at least 262 prisoners of conscience. Hanoi alway denies, saying it has jailed only law violators.

A court in southern Vietnam’s southern Hau Giang province on Wednesday sentenced a Facebook user to seven years in prison for posting writings said by prosecutors to have misrepresented state policies, Vietnamese sources said.

Dang Hoang Minh, 28, had been charged with “creating, storing, and disseminating information, items, and materials opposing the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” under Article 117 of Vietnam’s 2015 Criminal Code, state media reports said.

Reports by local media did not say when Minh—a resident of the Phu Khoi hamlet in Hau Giang’s Phung Hiep district—had been arrested or whether he had been represented by a lawyer at his trial.

Citing the provincial People’s Procuracy indictment against him, state media said Minh had posted several “untrue stories” concerning current and former leaders of Vietnam’s one-party communist government on his Facebook page from June to December 2020.

Former Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, founder of the country’s communist party, was among the leaders Minh had defamed, prosecutors said, adding that Minh’s postings had been aimed at opposing the national government and ruling party and had caused “confusion and anxiety” to his readers.

Reporting by RFA shows that at least 21 Vietnamese citizens have been charged with political offenses involving social media posts since the beginning of the year, with 21 now serving prison terms following convictions under Article 117.

Among those jailed this year, former RFA blogger Nguyen Tuong Thuy, now in his 70s, was sentenced on Jan. 5 by a court in Ho Chi Minh City to an 11-year prison term following his conviction on charges under Article 117.

On Friday, April 23, a court in coastal Phu Yen province sentenced an independent journalist, Tran Thi Tuyet Dieu, to an eight-year prison term for writing “anti-state” stories and sharing them on social media.

And on May 5, a court in northern Vietnam’s Hoa Binh province sentenced land-rights activist Can Thi Theu and her son Tring Ba Tu to eight years in prison each for posting online articles and livestream videos criticizing the government for its handling of a deadly land-rights clash last year.

Harsh forms of persecution

With Vietnam’s media all following Communist Party orders, “the only sources of independently-reported information are bloggers and independent journalists, who are being subjected to ever-harsher forms of persecution,” the press freedoms watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says in its 2021 Press Freedoms Index.

Measures taken against them now include assaults by plainclothes police, RSF said in its report, which placed Vietnam at 175 out of 180 countries surveyed worldwide, a ranking unchanged from last year.

“To justify jailing them, the Party resorts to the criminal codes, especially three articles under which ‘activities aimed at overthrowing the government,’ ‘anti-state propaganda’ and ‘abusing the rights to freedom and democracy to threaten the interests of the state’ are punishable by long prison terms,” the rights 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. But arrests continue in 2021.

Police in Vietnam’s capital Hanoi tried on Tuesday to arrest an independent journalist charged with reporting on corruption and other issues deemed politically sensitive by authorities, but missed him at home, taking away a laptop computer and two mobile phones instead.

Le Van Dung, also known as Le Dung Vova—owner of the online CHTV news channel—was not at home when officers from the Hanoi Police Department’s Investigation Agency arrived at around 1:30 p.m., Dung’s wife Bui Thi Hue told RFA on Wednesday.

“Around 20 officers came to our house and read a warrant to search our home and to charge and temporarily detain my husband Le Van Dung in accordance with Article 117 [of Vietnam’s Criminal Code],” she said.

Article 117 of Vietnam’s Penal Code imposes penalties for “creating, storing, and disseminating information, documents, items and publications opposing the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” and is frequently used by authorities to stifle peaceful critics of the country’s one-party communist state.

Dung was away from home when the police arrived and is now “temporarily safe,” Hue said, adding that officers searching the house found nothing belonging to her husband, but left with a laptop computer and two mobile phones of her own.

Hue said that she had not touched or looked at the warrant that was read to her and had to stand back from the officers because of COVID concerns.

“They documented their search, but I didn’t sign the document, and therefore they didn’t leave me with any papers,” she added.

Dung’s CHTV channel has used Facebook’s live-broadcast feature to transmit information on social issues such as land disputes and corruption, and to give ordinary citizens a chance to discuss matters of concern, drawing the attention of law enforcement and security agencies.

'Useful and good'

Writing on his Facebook page on May 25, Dung said he had received repeated calls since January to report to local authorities for questioning concerning a denunciation filed against him by the government’s Cybersecurity Department, alleging he had created videos with “anti-State” content.

Half of the 12 videos used by police investigators to accuse him showed signs of outside editing, though, Dung said.

“I think that I’ve done is useful and good for other people and for our country. We need to join hands and work to create a better society,” Dung said, writing on his Facebook page. “What I have done is in line with my responsibilities as a citizen.”

“I understand that by telling the truth, my family and I may suffer. But I will always do this, even if I am imprisoned for doing what my conscience tells me to do,” he said.

With Vietnam’s media all following Communist Party orders, “the only sources of independently-reported information are bloggers and independent journalists, who are being subjected to ever-harsher forms of persecution,” the press freedoms watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says in its 2021 Press Freedoms Index.

Measures taken against them now include assaults by plainclothes police, RSF said in its report, which placed Vietnam at 175 out of 180 countries surveyed worldwide, a ranking unchanged from last year.

“To justify jailing them, the Party resorts to the criminal codes, especially three articles under which ‘activities aimed at overthrowing the government,’ ‘anti-state propaganda’ and ‘abusing the rights to freedom and democracy to threaten the interests of the state’ are punishable by long prison terms,” the rights 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. But arrests continue in 2021.

Vietnam’s authoritarian regime has convicted land rights activists and human rights defenders Can Thi Theu and her second son Trinh Ba Tu of “conducting anti-state propaganda” under Article 117 of the country’s Criminal Code for their peaceful activities which aim to protest illegal land seizure in their locality and human rights advocacy for other victims of legal miscarriage.

The conviction was made by the People’s Court of Hoa Binh province in the first-hearing instance on May 5. The conviction was made by the People’s Court of Hoa Binh province in the first-hearing instance on May 5. The court sentenced them to eight years in prison and three years of probation each.

The province’s government deployed large numbers of riot policemen, police, plainclothes agents and militia to block all roads leading to the court areas. Only Theu’s daughter and daughter-in-law were allowed to enter the courtroom while her husband Trinh Ba Khiem and dozens of other land petitioners were kept in streets far from the court areas.

According to Saigon-based human rights lawyer Dang Dinh Manh who provided legal assistance for the mother and the son, when the judge asked their identity, both answered that they are victims of land grabbers and the communist regime.

Tu, 33, said he was insulted by procuror Vu Binh Minh during the pre-trial detention while Mrs. Theu said she was placed in a 7-square-meter cell with 9 others some of them are infected with HIV in the Hoa Binh temporary detention facility operated by the province’s Police Department.

The procuracy representative in the trial said Theu and Tu posted a number of video clips on their Facebook accounts with the content causing confusion among the public, however, the two activists said any ordinary people have been confused but only the regime’s officials who were involved in land grabbing. Their posts aim to tell the truth about illegal land seizure in Vietnam and the regime’s persecution against farmers who protest the land grabbing so the general public and the international community understand the ongoing situation in the country.

This will be the third time Mrs. Theu was convicted of controversial allegations. In 2014-2018, she was twice imprisoned for a total 35 months for protesting Hanoi’s authorities to grab farming land in Duong Noi commune, Ha Dong district where her family lives. She was imprisoned for “resisting on-duty state officials” or “causign public disorders.” Her husband Khiem was also jailed for “resisting on-duty state officials.”

After her release in 2016, Theu and her family including two sons Tu and Trinh Ba Phuong involved in advocacy for other land petitioners nationwide whose number mounts to thousands and gather in Hanoi to daily go the government agencies to submit their petitions. Before and after the bloody attack of 3,000 riot policemen in Dong Tam commune on January 9, 2020, the trio provided great support for Dong Tam land petitioners, including posting news on the case, meeting with foreign diplomats to update information, and calling for financial supports for the families of detainees after the raid.

In order to suppress the support of local activists given for land petitioners in Dong Tam, Vietnam’s authorities arrested a number of people, including prominent political blogger and world-recognized human rights defender Pham Doan Trang, human rights advocate Nguyen Thuy Hanh who set up and managed the 50K Fund, and four human rights campaigners Theu, Phuong, Tu, and former prisoner of conscience Nguyen Thi Tam, all the four from Duong Noi commune, Ha Dong district, Hanoi.

Mrs. Theu and Mr. Tu were arrested on June 24, 2020 by the police of Ha Son Binh province while Mr. Phuong was detained by the Hanoi Police Department on the same day. The mother and the younger son were held incommunicado since their arrests until a few months ago when they were permitted to meet their lawyers to prepare for defense while Mr. Phuong has yet to be allowed to meet with his relatives or lawyers.

Since their arrests, many foreign governments and international human rights organizations have condemned the Vietnamese government’s acts and urged Hanoi to release them immediately and unconditionally. However, Hanoi claims that they were not arrested for their human rights activities but crime activities harmful for the regime. Two days ahead of their trial, Human Rights Watch issued a statement urging Vietnam’s authoritarian regime to free them, saying Hanoi should not imprison those who tell the trust like Theu and her sons.

The ruling Communist Party of Vietnam conducted its 13th National Congress on January 25-February 1 this year to select the country’s leadership for the next five years. With many conservative figures of the regime such as General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, former Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc now becoming state president, and Minister of Public Security To Lam, it is likely the crackdown on the political dissidents, social activists and human rights defenders which has been intensified since late 2015 will continue. Vietnam’s human rights records are unlikely to be improved in coming years after former police general Pham Minh Chinh gained power to become the government leader while other former police generals continue to hold leading positions in the procuracy and the court systems.

Since the beginning of this year, Vietnam has arrested at least ten activists, mostly on controversial allegations in the National Security provisions of the Criminal Code. So far, it has convicted 14 activists and sentenced them to a total 106 years in prison and 21 years of probation. The toughest imprisonment of 15 years in prison and three years of probation was given to PhD. Pham Chi Dung, the president of the unregistered professional group Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam who was convicted of “conducting anti-state propaganda.”

According to Defend the Defenders’ latest statistics, Vietnam holds at least 261 prisoners of conscience. Hanoi always denies holding prisoners of conscience but only law violators.

Vietnam’s security forces have arrested Mr. Nguyen Bao Tien, a shipper and a collaborator of the unregistered Liberal Publishing House (LPH), and charged him with “conducting anti-state propaganda” under Article 117 of the Criminal Code.

According to the state-controlled media, the Police Department of the central province of Phu Yen publicized the arrest and the criminal probe on May 5. The security forces were said to conduct a house search and confiscated dozens of books printed by LPH but considered harmful for the authoritarian regime in Vietnam.

According to the Phu Yen police, Mr. Tien, 35, participated in distribution of books illegally printed by LPH in August-October 2019. He was said to have received 68 postal boxes containing the illegally-printed, of which he handed over 24 to readers.

Phu Yen police said he was arrested recently while tried to send the books in a post office in Phu Yen province.

One day after the Phu Yen province’s police announced the arrest of Mr. Tien, LPH issued a statement confirming that Tien was among its collaborators, once time distributing its books when Vietnam’s authorities launched a campaign to halt activities of the unsanctioned publisher. It lost contact with him since early October 2019 while his Facebook and Whatsapp accounts were likely locked. The publisher suspected that the Phu Yen police arrested Tien in early October two years ago and kept him in police custody without informing his family.

Similar to other political cases, Mr. Tien will be held incommunicado for at least next four months.

LPH was established in February 2019 by a group of activists including prominent human rights defender and political blogger Pham Doan Trang who wrote a series of dissident books. It printed a dozens of books considered harmful to Vietnam’s authoritarian regime as their content is about human rights and democracy as well as bad nature of communism and communist regimes worldwide. Its uncensored products met great interest of Vietnam’s public. Due to its great work, in 2020, it was honored with Prix Voltaire of the International Publishers’ Association.

However, it met strong persecution from Vietnam’s security forces which detained several contributors of the publisher for interrogation. Some of them were brutally tortured in police custody and they were forced to relocate after being released or escaped from police. In October 7, Vietnam’s police arrested Ms. Pham Doan Trang on charges of “conducting anti-state propaganda” under Article 88 of the Penal Code (1999) and Article 117 of the Criminal Code (2015).

Tien’s arrest may be linked to the detention of Ms. Trang who may face imprisonment of between seven to 12 years in prison, even to 20 years. Due to fierce suppression of the Vietnamese government and its internal issues, LPH was forced to suspend its operation in 2020.

If Tien was truly arrested on May 5 as the Phu Yen police said, he would be 11th activist being detained so far this year and the 5th alleged with “conducting anti-state propaganda” while other six were charged with “abusing democratic freedom” under Article 331 of the Criminal Code, according to Defend the Defenders’ statistics. As of May 5, Vietnam’s regime has convicted 14 activists and sentenced them to a total 106 years in prison and 21 years of probation.

With his arrest, the number of prisoners of conscience in Vietnam rose to 261, the latest statistics of Defend the Defenders showed.

On April 23, the People’s Court in Phu Yen province convicted Dieu under Article 117 of the penal code, an anti-state provision that bans “creating, storing and disseminating information and materials” against the state, and sentenced her to eight years in prison, according to news reports.

Dieu, a former state newspaper reporter who as an independent journalist posted news and commentary on Facebook at “Tuyet Dieu Babel” “and “Tran Thi Tuyet Dieu Journalist” (which has been taken down), and the YouTube channel “Tuyet Dieu Tran,” was convicted in relation to 25 news stories and nine videos deemed to be anti-state, news reports said.

“Vietnamese authorities should reverse this outrageously harsh sentencing of independent reporter Tran Thi Tuyet Dieu and immediately and unconditionally set her free,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “Vietnam must stop treating journalists as criminals and allow them to report freely without fear of cruel and unusual punishment.”

Dieu was first arrested on August 21, 2020, and held in pretrial detention until her court hearing, according to CPJ research. Her lawyer, Nguyen Kha Thanh, said she pleaded innocent to the charges and that the trial lasted only three hours, news reports said. It was not immediately clear from the reports if Dieu plans to appeal the conviction. CPJ could not immediately locate contact information for Thanh.

Dieu’s reports on Facebook and YouTube covered socio-economic topics including corruption, the environment, and human rights, according to The 88 Project, an advocacy group that monitors the status of Vietnamese political prisoners.

The Ministry of Public Security did not immediately respond to CPJ’s emailed request for comment on Dieu’s conviction sent through its website.

Vietnam is among the worst jailers of journalists worldwide, with at least 15 behind bars at the time of CPJ’s annual prison census on December 1, 2020.

Authorities in southern Vietnam’s Dong Nai province arrested and later released an ethnic Khmer Krom youth and labor activist after he released a book about indigenous rights, drawing condemnation from a Khmer Krom advocacy group.

Yoeung Kaiy said in a post to his Facebook account following his release on Wednesday morning that he had been arrested a day earlier by “around 100 police officers” who raided his home allegedly without a warrant and confiscated some 100 books detailing the United Nations’ Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, his cellphone, and his computer.

He said the police returned his cellphone and computer but kept the books and charged him with “publishing without permission” and “tax evasion.”

RFA’s Khmer Service was unable to reach Yoeung Kaiy on Wednesday for further comment but he told the Khmer Krom News outlet that despite his release he remains concerned about his security.

Yoeung Kaiy’s father told RFA on Tuesday that his son had been arrested “because of his activism” and discrimination by Vietnamese authorities. He said that his son has advocated for better working conditions for Khmer Krom workers in Vietnam.

The Khmer Krom—ethnic Khmer who live in what was historically southeastern Cambodia, but now controlled by Vietnam—face serious restrictions on freedom of expression, assembly, association, information, and movement in Vietnam, despite being recognized as one of 53 ethnic minorities in the country, according to U.S.-based Human Rights Watch.

The Vietnamese government has banned Khmer Krom human rights publications and tightly controls the practice of Theravada Buddhism by the minority group, which sees the religion as a foundation of their distinct culture and ethnic identity.

‘Contrary to international obligations’

Venerable Son Yoeng Ratana, information department director for the Khmer Kampuchea Krom Federation rights group, condemned Yoeung Kaiy’s arrest, which he said was ordered because authorities in Vietnam want to bar Khmer Krom from advocating for self-determination.

“This arrest is very unjust for Khmer Krom people because the young man simply disseminated the U.N.’s declaration on indigenous rights, which Vietnam has recognized,” he said.

“The Vietnamese authorities acted contrary to their international obligations. This shows they are continuing to abuse the human rights of Khmer Krom, who are an indigenous people.”

Yoeung Kaiy had recently launched a Facebook page to educate Khmer Krom workers on their labor rights. He also provides pro bono advice to Khmer Krom involved in labor disputes and hopes to set up unions for Khmer Krom factory workers.

Yoeung Kaiy told RFA in March that Khmer Krom workers in Vietnam were being forced to work overtime and refused time off for Khmer national holidays such as the Khmer New Year and the Pchum Ben Festival.

To date, the governments of only two of the 21 provinces Vietnam has claimed from Cambodia since the 17th century allow Khmer Krom workers to take days off during the Khmer New Year.

More recently, Yoeung Kaiy told RFA that that he has been regularly followed by Vietnamese authorities demanding that he stop his advocacy on behalf of the Khmer Krom and assaulted when he refused.

“When we express our views, they threatened to imprison us,” he said.

Recent harassment

At least three Khmer Krom youths were recently fined up to U.S. $300 for posting comments on Facebook about their indigenous history.

Another Khmer Krom youth, To Hoang Chhuong, was fined U.S. $300 for wearing a T-shirt marking the anniversary of the loss of Khmer territory to Vietnam. He recently told RFA that he plans to publish a guide to self-determination and distribute it for free to members of his ethnic minority.

“I am disseminating information on indigenous rights to raise awareness among the Khmer Krom of the laws governing indigenous people,” he said.

The latest harassment follows a March 29 raid by Vietnamese authorities on the printing house of a Khmer Krom man named Thach Sang who had created T-shirts declaring the ethnic group’s support for International Women’s Day on March 8, based on a customer’s order.

Thach Sang told RFA that he is seeking intervention from NGOs and human rights groups against the authorities, whose actions he said had disrupted his business.

“This was a threat and they tried to force me to ‘accept my mistakes,’” he said, noting that police demanded that he thumbprint a document at the time of the raid, but did not allow him to read it, so he refused to do so.

A court in Vietnam sentenced a journalist to eight years Friday for writing anti-state stories and sharing them on social media, her lawyer told RFA.

The People’s Court in the south-central coastal province of Phu Yen convicted Tran Thi Tuyet Dieu of violating article 117 of the Vietnamese penal code for “creating, storing and disseminating information and materials against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.”

“The trial lasted three hours, which is quite fast. The prosecution carried a sentence range of five to 12 years and I think the 8-years is pretty harsh,” Nguyen Kha Thanh, Dieu’s lawyer told RFA’s Vietnamese Service.

“Ms. Dieu had a clean criminal record. This is her first offense,” Thanh said.

A former employee of a state-run newspaper, Dieu was arrested in August 2020, for managing a Facebook profile called “Tuyết Babel” and a YouTube account under the name “Tuyết Diệu Trần." According to the Vietnam News Agency, which cited the indictment, Dieu had used the websites to disseminate 25 news stories and nine videos deemed to be against the state.

She also stored seven other anti-state stories on her laptop and had published online written materials in support of democracy activist Nguyen Viet Dung, currently serving a six-year sentence for disseminating anti-state materials, including photos of himself in military garb in front of the flag of South Vietnam, defeated when the communist North unified the country in 1975.

After Dieu’s arrest, she was not allowed to contact anyone for months and could not meet her lawyer until November 2020.

“She pleaded innocent, saying that there were no victims of what she did. She did not accept the accusations as the trial failed to find a person harmed by her actions,” said the lawyer.

“But the court said her actions caused harm to the nation, a common tactic that allows them to not have to show any specific harmed individuals,” he said.

Thanh said as a regular citizen, Dieu’s writings were not done with the intention of opposing the government, and an individual’s writings are not strong enough to topple an entire government.

“In my view what she was doing was not in opposition to the authorities. I guess Ms. Dieu wrote those things because she was upset or something. She should have been charged with an administrative violation or for insulting an organization,” Thanh said.

Harsh forms of persecution

With Vietnam’s media all following Communist Party orders, “the only sources of independently-reported information are bloggers and independent journalists, who are being subjected to ever-harsher forms of persecution,” the press freedoms watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says in its 2021 Press Freedoms Index.

Measures taken against them now include assaults by plainclothes police, RSF said in its report, which placed Vietnam at 175 out of 180 countries surveyed worldwide, a ranking unchanged from last year.

“To justify jailing them, the Party resorts to the criminal codes, especially three articles under which ‘activities aimed at overthrowing the government,’ ‘anti-state propaganda’ and ‘abusing the rights to freedom and democracy to threaten the interests of the state’ are punishable by long prison terms,” the rights 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. But arrests continue in 2021.

Vietnamese authorities should immediately release journalist Nguyen Hoai Nam, drop any pending charges against him, and stop jailing journalists on trumped-up anti-state allegations, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

On April 3, authorities in Ho Chi Minh City detained Nam, an independent journalist who publishes commentary and reporting on Facebook, according to news reports.

On April 10, authorities announced that he was being investigated under Article 331 of the penal code, an anti-state provision that penalizes “abusing democratic freedoms,” and carries maximum seven-year prison terms for convictions, those reports said.

On his personal Facebook page, which has about 7,800 followers, Nam recently wrote about alleged government corruption, and frequently posted criticism of Communist Party officials, according to the U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Radio Free Asia and CPJ’s review of his page. CPJ could not immediately determine which specific posts authorities cited in their allegations against Nam.

“Vietnamese authorities should immediately release journalist Nguyen Hoai Nam and drop any pending charges against him,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “If Vietnam’s government wants to be viewed internationally as a responsible actor, it must stop treating journalism as a crime, and must stop harassing members of the press over their work.”

Nam, who previously reported for state media outlets including Phap Luat (Law Journal), Thanh Nien (Youth Newspaper), and Voice of Vietnam Radio, will be held in pretrial detention at Ho Chi Minh City’s Chi Hoa Detention Center while authorities investigate his case, those news reports said.

CPJ emailed the Ministry of Public Security for comment, but did not receive any reply.

CPJ’s latest prison census found that Vietnam imprisoned at least 15 journalists for their work as of December 1, 2020, making the nation the second-worst jailer in Asia, trailing only China.

Yesterday, police in the southern city of Can Tho arrested the three journalists as part of an ongoing investigation into Truong Chau Huu Danh, founder of the independent Bao Sach (“Clean Newspaper”) Facebook-based news outlet, according to news reports. Authorities also seized documents relating to their work during the arrests, those reports said.

Nha, Giang, and Bao worked as reporters for Bao Sach before its Facebook page was deactivated following Danh’s arrest in December 2020, according to those reports and CPJ documentation from the time.

Danh is accused of violating Article 331 of the penal code, which bans “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the State” and carries potential seven-year jail terms, according to CPJ’s coverage from the time, which called for his immediate release.

CPJ could not immediately determine whether Nha, Giang, and Bao are also accused under Article 331 of the penal code.

“Reporters Thanh Nha, Doan Kien Giang, and Nguyen Phuoc Trung Bao should all be immediately and unconditionally released,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “Vietnamese authorities must stop jailing journalists for their work, and should ensure that members of the press are able to work for independent outlets without fear of arrest and legal harassment.”

Bao Sach had more than 100,000 followers on Facebook at the time of Danh’s arrest last year; it covered topics including protests over alleged illegal toll collectors on local highway systems, and posted images of government officials arrested over their suspected involvement in such a scheme, as CPJ documented at the time.

Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security did not immediately respond to CPJ’s request for comment on the reporters’ arrests and the status of Danh’s case, filed through its website.

Vietnam is among the worst jailers of journalists worldwide, with at least 15 behind bars when CPJ conducted its annual prison census on December 1, 2020.

On April 14, authorities in Thu Duc city arrested former police captain Le Chi Thanh on the allegation of “resisting on-duty state officials” under Article 330 of the Criminal Code for his efforts to monitor traffic police forces.

Mr. Thanh, 38, was a police officer of Thu Duc Prison camp. Last year, he was dismissed from the forces after filling denunciations accusing the prison camp’s senior managers of corruption and wrongdoings.

In recent months, he and his friends went on streets to film works of traffic police teams in many places. His activities are considered by the authorities disrupting the works of the traffic police which is seen as one of the most corrupted groups in Vietnam.

The Police Department of Ho Chi Minh City is considering to additionally charge him with “abusing democratic freedom” under Article 331 of the same code for his numerous Facebook livestreams on which he talked about bribery of traffic policemen.

A court in southern Vietnam’s Can Tho City on Thursday sentenced a Facebook user to two years in prison for posting articles and livestream videos criticizing Vietnam’s communist government online, family members and media sources said.

Le Thi Binh, born in 1976, was arrested in December and charged with “abusing the rights to freedom and democracy to threaten the interests of the state” under Article 331 of Vietnam’s 2015 Penal Code. Her elder brother, Le Minh The, had completed a two-year jail term on the same charge in July.

Binh’s lawyer argued at trial for a reduced sentence of 12 months, Binh’s son Nguyen Chi Thanh told RFA after the trial, “But the prosecutor recommended two and a half years, and my mom was finally sentenced to two years in prison.”

Quoting the indictment against her, state media said Binh had used her Facebook page from October 2019 to November 2020 to livestream, post, and share posts “conveying bad and reactionary viewpoints and ideas” aimed at opposing and defaming Vietnam’s Communist Party and party and state leaders.

Binh had also “seriously insulted” Communist Vietnam’s founding leader Ho Chi Minh in her posts and called for a multiparty and pluralistic state to replace the current political regime, state media said.

Binh’s arrest and jailing is only the latest in a continuing series of arrests of independent journalists, publishers, and Facebook personalities after authorities began last year to stifle critics in the run-up to the ruling Communist Party Congress in January.

With Vietnam’s media tightly controlled by the country’s ruling Communist Party, “the only sources of independently-reported information are bloggers and independent journalists,” the press freedoms watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in its 2021 Press Freedoms Index.

Measures now taken against them include jailings under vague charges in the criminal code and assaults by plainclothes police, RSF said in its report, which placed Vietnam at 175 out of 180 countries surveyed worldwide, a ranking unchanged from last year’s.

Also ranked low in this year’s survey were Vietnam’s neighbors Laos at 172, Cambodia at 144, and Myanmar, whose ranking at 140 represents a one-point drop from last year’s score, RSF said.

On 7 April 2021, police officers in Hanoi city arrested woman human rights defender Nguyễn ThúyHạnh under Article 117 of the Criminal Code, which relates to conducting anti-state propaganda.Nguyễn Thúy Hạnh has been the target of judicial harassment since 2016 and arbitrarily detained multiple times for her human rights activities. The woman human rights defender is currently being detained at Prison Camp 2 in Thuong Tin district.Nguyễn Thúy Hạnh is a woman human rights defender and an active advocate for Vietnam’s prisoners of conscience, as well as victims of land appropriation. She frequently visits the families of prisoners of conscience and accompanies them to the detention facilities, and until recently assisted in the collection of funds for their support through the ‘50K Fund’ that she set up for this purpose in 2018. She was forced to shut down the fund just a few months ago, under mounting pressure from the authorities. The woman human rights defender is also active on social media,where she regularly voices her opinions on human rights issues in the country.On 7 April 2021, a group of about 30 police officers arrested woman human rights defender Nguyễn Thúy Hạnh at her home in Hanoi and cordoned off her apartment. She was taken to the Hanoi police department’s Security Investigation Agency and then later moved to Prison Camp 2 in Thuong Tin district. The defender was arrested on charges under Article 117 of the Criminal Code for “making, storing, or spreading information, materials or items for the purpose of opposing the State of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam”, a charge that could carry a potential prison sentence of up to 20 years. Nguyễn Thúy Hạnh has requested the prison authorities grant her access to a lawyer, however the authorities have not responded to the request and so the woman human rights defender is yet to meet any lawyer or family member.Nguyễn Thúy Hạnh has come under frequent judicial harassment and persecution by Vietnamese authorities in the past several years for her human rights work. Following her efforts to raise funds for the family of a community leader who was killed in a police raid in Dong Tam village in January2020, Nguyễn Thúy Hạnh’s bank accounts were frozen, upon the instruction of the police. In March2018, following her participation in a peaceful protest against the Law on Cybersecurity and the Law on Special Economic Zones, the woman human rights defender was arrested and severely beaten during the interrogation, which resulted in injuries to her face.The woman human rights defender’s arrest comes after the recent sentencing of four other human rights defenders, Nguyen Tuong Thuy, Le Huu Minh Tuan, Pham Chi Dung and woman human rights defender Đinh Thị Thu Thủy, under the same charges under Article 117 of the Penal Code.On 14 January 2020, UN experts condemned the recent arrests in Vietnam and the dangerous and blatant usage of Article 117 of the Penal Code to silence critical voices and further restrict the right to freedom of expression in the country. Front Line Defenders condemns the arrest of woman human rights defender Nguyễn Thúy Hạnhand is seriously concerned by the shrinking space for freely exercising the right to freedom of expression in Vietnam without fear of consequence or retaliation, and the ongoing judicial harassment of human rights defenders. Front Line Defenders believes that Nguyễn Thúy Hạnh,like other human rights defenders recently arrested, is being targeted solely for her peaceful work in defence of human rights in Vietnam.

On April 15, the People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City convicted Mr. Quach Duy of “abusing democratic freedom” under Article 331 of the Criminal Code and sentenced him to four years and six months in prison for his anti-corruption efforts.

Mr. Duy, 38, was an official of the city’s People’s Committee. He was arrested in September last year after posting on Facebook about corruption and wrongdoings of senior officials of the committee, including Vice Chairman Le Vinh Tuyen.

The court judged that his posts have defamed the local leaders and undermined the regime.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Vietnam’s communist regime continues its crackdown on the local dissent prior to the 13th National Congress of the ruling party, arresting freelance journalist Tran Thi Tuyet Dieu and on allegation of “conducting anti-state propaganda” under Article 117 of the Criminal Code.

According to the state-controlled media, the police in the central province of Phu Yen carried out the arrest on August 21. They also conducted a search of the house of Ms. Dieu’s parents in Tay Hoa district where she lives with them. She will be held incommunicado for at least four months during the investigation period, the common practice Vietnam’s security forces have been applying in most of political cases.

Ms. Dieu graduated journalism from the University of Social Sciences and Humanities (Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City). Later, she worked for Phu Yen newspaper, the official voice of the province’s Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV)’s Committee. However, she left the newspaper and focused on criticizing the communist regime’s socio-economic issues such as systemic corruption, widespread environmental pollution, human rights violations, and weak response to China’s violations of the country’s sovereignty in the East Sea (South China Sea).

Phu Yen province’s police have accused her of using Facebook accounts “Tuyết Diệu Babel” and “Trần Thị Tuyết Diệu Journalist” as well as Youtube channel named Tuyết Diệu Trần to disseminate hundreds of articles and videoclips to defame communist leaders, including late President Ho Chi Minh, and distort the party’s policies.

In recent years, she has been harassed many times by the police forces. Once she was kidnapped by police in the central province of Nghe An who tortured her.

Ms. Dieu has been the 12th Facebooker being arrested and charged with “conducting anti-state propaganda” so far this year. She is facing imprisonment of between seven and 12 years or even up to 20 years if she is convicted.

Her arrest was made one week after the US, the EU and the UK urged Hanoi to ensure its actions are consistent with the human rights provisions of Vietnam’s Constitution and its international obligations and commitments and allow all individuals in Vietnam to express their views freely, without fear of retaliation. The call was made after Vietnam convicted eight members of the unregistered group Constitution of “disruption of security” for their participation in peaceful demonstrations and sentenced them to more than 40 years in prison.

Vietnam is holding at least 275 prisoners of conscience, according to Defend the Defenders’ statistics. As many as 50 of them were arrested this year, and 55 of them are held in pre-trial detention.

Since the beginning of this year, Vietnam has convicted 15 activists and sentenced them to 66 years and three months and 26 years of probation.

Vietnam�s communist regime has convicted eight members of the unregistered group Hi?n Ph�p (Constitution) of �disruption of security� under Article 118 of the country�s Criminal Code after nearly 23 months after kidnapping them and keeping them incommunicado for many months after that. Their conviction is the regime�s reprisal for their exercising the rights to freedom of expression and assembly.

On July 31, after just one day reviewing, the People�s Court of Ho Chi Minh City found them guilty and 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 with a three-year probation.

Authorities in HCM City deployed hundreds of police officers, plainclothes agents, militia, and thugs to block all routes leading to the courtroom to prevent relatives and friends of the defendants from entering the courtroom to observe the so-called open trial. They forced the activists� relatives and supporters to go away and attacked the sons of Mr. Dung. As a result, any relative of the activists was permitted to observe the trial inside but stayed far away from the courtroom.

Defend the Defenders has learned that only a diplomatic representative from the German Embassy in Vietnam was permitted to attend the trial while the requests from the diplomatic missions of the US and other countries were denied.

Hi?n Ph�p was established in 2017 with the aim to enhance civil rights among Vietnamese by disseminating the country�s Constitution approved 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 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.

They 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 Ho Chi Minh 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, and even after the families had been informed of the detention they have remained incommunicado for nearly a year.

The first two of the defendants, Ms. Hanh and Mrs. Vang were charged with Clause 1 of Article 118 with imprisonment of between seven and 15 years in prison while the remaining six are accused under Clause 2 of the same article with imprisonment between two and seven years.

A few months ago, Ms. Hong, who was detained when her daughter was about two years old, informed her family that she was held in very severe conditions. Since being arrested, she has been under physical and mental torture constantly, according to the information she gave her older sister.

In mid-April this 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, Hi?n Ph�p group has been targetted 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 this 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.

All imprisoned members of the group were considered prisoners of conscience by Defend the Defenders.

So far this year, Vietnam has convicted 15 activists to total 66.5 years in prison and 26 years of probation, according to Defend the Defenders� statistics. In addition, the regime has also arrested 49 activists and charged them with controversial allegations in the national security provisions of the Criminal Code for their peaceful exercising their basic rights enshrined in the country�s Constitution and the international human rights treaties Vietnam has signed.

On July 7, the People�s Court of Lam Dong province convicted local Facebooker Nguyen Quoc Duc Vuong 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, Defend the Defenders has learned.

During the short first-instance hearing lasting only a few hours, the court sentenced him to eight years in prison and three years of probation for using his Facebook account V??ng Nguy?n to conduct 98 video live streams and posted 366 status updates, amounting to content that distorts the regime and defames the communist leadership.

Nguyen Quoc Doanh, an older brother of Vuong, said the local authorities sent uniformed policemen and plainclothes agents to the areas near his family several days prior to the trial date in order to block the family�s members to attend the hearing. So Vuong�s family has learned about the court�s decision from his lawyer�s SMS.

In recent time, prior to the trial, authorities in the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong said there are increasing activities of reactionary forces in the locality while the ruling party is preparing for its local and National Congress slated for January next year, so they would punish Mr. Vuong hardly to silence others. And the outcome of the trial has proved it.

Mr. Vuong, born in 1991, was arrested on September 23, 2019. He was kept incommunicado during the investigation period and was permitted to meet his lawyer Nguyen Van Mieng nearly a month before the trial to prepare for his defense.

Vuong is a human rights activist. He participated in the mass demonstration in Ho Chi Minh City on June 10, 2018 in which tens of thousands of people from different social groups rallied on streets to protest two bills on Special Economic Zones and Cyber Security. He was detained and fined VND750,000 ($32) before being released.

So far this year, the communist regime has sentenced seven activists to total 26 years in prison and six years of probation. Two other Facebookers Nguyen Van Nghiem and Phan Cong Hai were sentenced to six and five years, respectively, also under the allegation of �conducting anti-state propaganda� under Article 117 of the Criminal Code. Two other Facebookers named Chung Hoang Chuong and Ma Phung Ngoc Phu were convicted of �abusing democratic freedom� under Article 331 and sentenced to 18 months and nine months in jail, respectively.

As many as 12 other activists, including prominent journalists Pham Chi Dung and Nguyen Tuong Thuy, the president and the vice president of the unregistered Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam, are held and investigated on the same accusation.

Vietnamese police detained and assaulted family members of a jailed democracy activist and Christian pastor before and during U.S. Ambassador Daniel Kritenbrink�s recent visit to their district in Thanh Hoa province, the political prisoner�s wife said Wednesday.

The house arrest and beating appears to be part of an intensifying crackdown on human rights activists and dissidents six months before the Communist Party of Vietnam�s next five-yearly party congress.

Ahead of the ambassador�s visit, local police visited the Quang Xuong district home of Pastor Nguyen Trung Ton, who is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence for his involvement with the Brotherhood for Democracy dissident group.

�On June 26, officers from the Quang Yen commune police department came to my house, ordering all the family members not to go out of the home for the next few days,� Nguyen�s wife Nguyen Thi Lanh told RFA�s Vietnamese Service.

They locked the gate surrounding the house Monday night, as Kritenbrink was arriving in Quang Xuong the next day.

According to a report by Thanh Hoa Radio and Television, the ambassador was leading U.S. delegation to the northern coastal province to attend an opening ceremony for a local project supported by the embassy�s Fund for Cultural Preservation.

Nguyen Thi Lanh said that on Tuesday morning, she used pliers to break the locks so she could sell goods in the market. Police arrested her there and took her to the Quang Yen police station.

At 4:00 p.m. that day her son Nguyen Trung Trong Nghia left the home to meet his mother at the station.

She said that when her son was on his way there he was attacked by two people, believed to be plainclothes police officers.

�My son was ambushed. They blindfolded and bludgeoned my son�s head with an electric baton, causing him injury,� said Nguyen Thi Lanh.

�A police officer took my son to a health clinic for treatment then brought him back to the Quang Yen police office for booking,� she said.

�This morning, my son returned to the health clinic for more treatment. His face was swollen, and he has broken teeth,� she added.

An official at the Quang Yen police station told the family that the reason for the house arrest was because Ambassador Kritenbrink was visiting their district. The ambassador left Quang Xuong at 5:00 p.m. Tuesday, after which the police left their position at the family�s house.

RFA attempted to contact the Quang Xuong district police office for comment, but nobody answered the phone.

Pastor Nguyen Trung Ton was arrested in July 2017 on charges of �attempting to overthrow the people�s government� and was sentenced to 12 years in prison and three years of probation in April 2018.

Vietnamese authorities have in the past taken interest in the family of political prisoners with Christian affiliations meeting with U.S. diplomats.

In 2016, local police subjected Tran Thi Hong, wife of imprisoned Mennonite pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh to an intense interrogation two months after she met with U.S. diplomats to discuss religious freedom.

Estimates of the number of prisoners of conscience now held in Vietnam�s jails vary widely. New York-based Human Rights Watch said that authorities held 138 political prisoners as of October 2019, while Defend the Defenders has suggested that at least 240 are in detention, with 36 convicted last year alone.

On June 24, Vietnam�s security forces violently detained Hanoi-based four activists for their voicing to support land petitioners in Dong Tam commune, Hoai Duc district who were brutally suppressed by the communist regime in January this year.

According to a short video clip made by human rights defender Trinh Ba Phuong, a large number of uniformed and plainclothes policemen gathered near his private residence in the early hours of Wednesday. At around 5.30 am, police cut Internet connection in the area and used pliers to cut his house�s lock to break in and arrest him in the front of his wife who gave the birth of their second child four days ago.

Phuong�s mother, former prisoner of conscience Can Thi Theu and his younger brother Trinh Ba Tu were also detained by the police. Theu, who was imprisoned twice a total 35 months for objecting land grabbing, was arrested while staying in her daughter�s house in the northern province of Hoa Binh while Tu was detained in their agricultural field in the province.

Land petitioner and human rights defender Nguyen Thi Tam was the fourth victim of Vietnam�s persecution today. She was kidnaped by security forces while going to a local wet market. She was taken away while the police came to her private residence in Duong Noi village for house searching.

According to their families, the detainees as well as some of their relatives were beaten by police officers during their detention and house search, during which police confiscated a computer set and four cell phones from Mrs. Tam�s house and cell phones from Mrs. Theu and her sons. Police also informed that they also found some books printed by the unsanctioned publisher Liberal Publishing House led by prominent human rights defender and political blogger Pham Doan Trang in Mrs. Theu�s family houses.

All of them from Duong Noi village, Ha Dong district, Hanoi where the city�s authorities seized their agricultural land without paying adequate compensation. Theu and her husband Trinh Ba Khiem as well as Phuong, Tu, and Tam were active fighters for their land although they failed.

Later, the state-controlled media reported that all of them were charged with �conducting anti-state propaganda� under Article 117 of the Criminal Code with the imprisonment of between seven and 12 years in prison but maybe up to 20 years in jail. While Mr. Phuong and Mrs. Tam are held in the Temporary detention center No. 1 (Hoa Lo) under the authority of the Hanoi Police Department, Mrs. Theu and her son Mr. Tu are kept in the temporary detention center under the authority of Hoa Binh province�s Police Department. All of them will be held incommunicado during the investigation period which will last four months at least and may be extended to more than two years.

The detentions are likely related to the brutal massacre on January 9 when the Ministry of Public Security deployed thousands of riot policemen to Dong Tam commune to attack Hoanh villagers. Police killed 84-year-old communist member Le Dinh Kinh, the spiritual leader of the local land petitioners, and arrested nearly 30 people, including his two sons and two grandchildren.

Police said during the attack, three police officers were killed and blamed the local petitioners for their death although there are no solid shreds of evidence for their deaths and even no traces of their bodies.

In its investigation report released recently, the Hanoi Police Department proposed 25 detainees be prosecuted of murders and four others of �resisting on-duty state officials.�

Since the land dispute in Dong Tam commune started in 2017, the four activists have provided strong support for the local petitioners. Right after the massacre in early January this year, Phuong and Tam kept updating their posts about the case on their Facebook accounts. Phuong also met with US diplomat in Hanoi to report the case.

Two days after detaining the four activists, authorities in Hanoi publicized the indictments against 29 Dong Tam land petitioners, paving the way for the city�s People�s Court to hold the first-trial against them. Hard sentences are expected for them. Some sources that they have a plan to impose the death penalty for four of the defendants and lengthy sentences for the remaining.

Tam is a well-known strong woman in Duong Noi. She often criticized Hanoi police for persecuting her. In recent weeks, she made a number of online surveys about the communist regime�s policies and its senior officials.

It is worth noting that Facebooker Chung Hoang Chuong has convicted of �abusing democratic freedom� and sentenced to 18 months in prison for disseminating information about the police�s massacre in Dong Tam.

Along with recent detentions across the country, the arrests on Wednesday prove that the communist regime will apply all measures to crack down on the local dissent in a bid to ensure a �stable environment� for preparation of the 13th National Congress of the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam. It is likely that the police generals want to show their power after dozens of police and army generals have been imprisoned for fired for economic wrongdoings.

On June 23, the People�s Court of Vietnam�s northern province of Hoa Binh convicted local resident Nguyen Van Nghiem 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.

At the end of the first-instance hearing which lasted a few hours, the court sentenced the 57-year-old barber to six years in prison, Defend the Defenders has learned.

In an open trial, only the defendant�s wife was permitted to enter the courtroom while his friends and supporters were barred from observing the trial inside.

The defendant had no legal assistance although his wife had signed a contract with Hanoi-based attorney Ha Huy Son. It is likely Nghiem got pressured from the police to deny legal counseling.

Nghiem was arrested on November 5 last year over his posts on Facebook regarding issues such as human rights violations, systemic corruption, widespread environmental pollution and China�s violations of the country�s sovereignty in the East Sea (South China Sea) and the weak response of Vietnam�s communist regime. He also conducted many live streams on his Facebook account Nghiem Nguyen on which criticized the communist regime and its leaders for their failure to deal with these problems.

So far this year, Vietnam has tried activists, four of them were convicted between nine months and six years for their posts on Facebook. In addition, hundreds of Facebookers have been fined up to VND15 million ($680) for their Facebook posts which were considered fake or untrue by the communist authorities, especially about the Covid-19 pandemic.

Vietnam�s communist regime is holding at least 280 prisoners of conscience, according to the latest statistics of Defend the Defenders. More arrests are expected by the end of this year as the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam is preparing its 13th National Congress slated in January 2021.

Vietnam�s communist regime has arrested the third journalist named Le Huu Minh Tuan in an effort to demolish the unregistered group Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam (IJAVN), Defend the Defenders has learned.

Local activists reported that on June 12, the security forces of Ho Chi Minh City�s Police Department arrested Mr. Tuan, who is a member of IJAVN, and has a number of articles under penname Le Tuan. It is unclear what the charge he is facing, but his arrest is likely related to the previous detentions of IJAVN�s President Ph?m Chi Dung and Vice President Nguyen Tuong Thuy, who were accused of �conducting anti-state propaganda� under Article 117 of the Criminal Code with imprisonment of between seven and 12 years if are convicted.

Tuan was said to be taken to Chi Hoa temporary detention center under the authority of HCM City�s Police Department, where Mr. Dung and Mr. Thuy are held incommunicado since their arrest in November 2019 and May 23 this year, respectively.

Mr. Tuan, 31, joined IJAVN in 2014. He graduated from Da Nang University, majoring in history. He is currently working on a second degree at Hanoi Law University.

In the months after the arrest of Mr. Dung, Tuan was repeatedly summoned by security forces for interrogation about the association. Tuan�s friends advised him to go into hiding to avoid being harassed or detained, however, he refused, saying he didn�t want his studies interrupted. He also acquiesced to these questionings because he believed he hadn�t done anything wrong.

In order to keep the country under a one-party regime, the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam is striving not to allow the formation of opposition groups and civil society organizations. After arresting a dozen of key members of the unsanctioned group Brotherhood for Democracy, Vietnam�s security forces are targeting IJAVN which has more than 50 independent journalists and dissidents who have produced thousands of unbiased articles regarding hot issues of the country such as human rights violations, systemic corruption, widespread environmental pollution, China�s violations of the country�s sovereignty in the East Sea (South China Sea) and the weak response of the communist regime in Hanoi, failures of socio-economic policies of the ruling Communist Party, etc.

Under the communist regime�s provision, IJAVN is a thorny group that should not exist. Since its establishment in 2014, it and its members have been under constant persecution of security forces who strive not to allow its members to gather or meet with foreign diplomats. In November last year, the security forces started their campaign to crack down on the association by arresting its President Dung and a half year later, they detained Acting President Thuy.

A number of its members are under threat and may be arrested at any moment as the security forces want to eradicate the association ahead of the upcoming 13th National Congress scheduled in January 2021.

Vietnam is among the world�s biggest enemies of the press. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Hanoi held 12 journalists under the bar for their journalism activities as of 2019�s end while the Reporters Without Border (RSF) has placed Vietnam at the bottom of its annual free press indexes in recent years.

So far this year, Vietnam has arrested at least 12 activists, nine of them for their writings. Vietnam is also among the biggest prisons of prisoners of conscience in Southeast Asia, with more than 250 activists being kept behind bars.

Vietnamese police on Saturday (May 22) detained the acting president of the unsanctioned Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam (IJAVN) six months after the arrest of its president, a rights group and his family said.

Nguyen Tuong Thuy (pic), 68, was arrested on Saturday morning at his house in Hanoi on the charge of "conducting anti-state propaganda," Defend the Defenders, a non-profit NGO working for the promotion of human rights and democracy as well as assisting local activists at risk in Vietnam, reported.

Thuy, a retired veteran and an active blogger, is renowned for commenting on the government's policies and criticizing them for social injustice and corruption.

His family said a group of security officers blocked his private residence in Hanoi, confiscating the mobile phones of all members of the family, and started to search their house. Police seized his computers and other personal items and took him away.

"The recent arrests, including those of Mr Pham Thanh and Mr Nguyen Tuong Thuy, are part of the ongoing crackdown on local dissent prior to the party's 13th National Congress slated in January 2021," Vu Quoc Ngu, director of Defend the Defenders, said.

On Thursday, police arrested Pham Thanh, a former journalist for the Voice of Vietnam, on the same charge as Thuy.

Thanh, 68, has written several books and essays criticizing Vietnam's communist government and leaders, including a book self-published in 2019 harshly criticizing Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

Vietnam, a single party state, broadly bans dissent in its penal code.

The 88 Project, a US-based rights monitoring group, lists more than 200 political prisoners in Vietnam.

The country denies holding political prisoners.

Police officers from the Ministry of Public Security detained young activist Nguyen Anh Tuan on Friday when he was in a cafeteria in Hanoi.

Police took him to a police station and questioned about his legal writing about the land dispute in Dong Tam commune, Hoai Duc district, Hanoi and the brutal assault by thousands of riot policemen in Hoanh village on January 9 in which police barbarically killed 84-year-old Le Dinh Kinh and arrested around 30 local residents.

Mr. Tuan was released in the late afternoon of the same day.

Mr. Tuan, born in 1990 from the central city of Danang, is a talented young man. He has just completed a master degree in Public Policy at the Vietnam-Japan University of Hanoi National University. He also attended many overseas-based training sessions about campaigning for democracy and human rights. He actively supported victims of the Formosa environmental disaster. He has been illegally detained many times, having a passport confiscated for many months before being returned thanks to pressure from the EU.

After the Dong Tam massacre, Tuan and many individuals as well as independent civil society groups have provided support and legal guidance to Dong Tam villagers, and helped them draft letters to foreign governments and international rights organizations.

Police in Vietnam�s capital Hanoi arrested a dissident writer and blogger on Thursday on charges of producing and distributing information opposing the government amid a deepening crackdown on freedom of expression in the one-party communist state.

Pham Chi Thanh, also called Pham Thanh, was taken into custody at 8:00 a.m. by a large group of police who burst through the door of his home, his wife Nguyen Thi Nghiem told RFA�s Vietnamese Service by phone.

�While my son was opening the door, many police came into the house, and I heard the noise and came downstairs,� Nguyen said.

�They asked me where my husband was, and I said he was on the fifth floor watering [bonsai] trees. Then they brought my husband downstairs, and the police said they had warrants to arrest him and to search the house.�

After the police read out their warrants, they seized two computers, a printer, and some documents, arrested Pham, and left the house at 10:00 a.m., Nguyen said, adding that she was so weakened and overwhelmed by anxiety during the arrest that she couldn�t hear clearly what Pham had been charged with.

Writing later on his Facebook page, another dissident writer said however that Pham had been arrested under Article 117 of Vietnam�s penal code for �producing, storing, and disseminating information and documents against the Vietnamese state.�

RFA has not been able yet to independently confirm the charge.

Critical books, essays

Born in 1952, Pham Thanh has written a number of books and essays critical of Vietnam�s communist government and leaders, including a book self-published in 2019 harshly criticizing Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

Dissent is not tolerated in Vietnam, and authorities routinely use a set of vague provisions in the penal code to detain dozens of writers, bloggers, and activists calling for greater freedoms in the one-party communist state.

Estimates of the number of prisoners of conscience now held in Vietnam�s jails vary widely.

New York-based Human Rights Watch has said that authorities held 138 political prisoners as of October 2019, while Defend the Defenders has suggested that at least 240 are in detention, with 36 convicted last year alone.

On May 8, the People�s Court of Soc Son district in Vietnam�s capital city of Hanoi convicted two anti-corruption activists named Dang Thi Hue and Bui Manh Tien on allegation of �causing public disorders� under Article 318 of the country�s Criminal Code.

Specifically, they were sentenced to 15 months in prison each. Due to her 24-month probation sentence earlier, Ms. Hue has to serve her 42-month imprisonment in the coming years.

They were arrested in mid-October last year when they were trying to block the Bac Thang Long-Noi Bai BOT (build-operating-transfer) toll booth to protest its illegal fee collection. Their acts were simply civil but considered as criminal since the BOT toll booths belong to companies backed by senior state officials.

In May last year, Ms. Hue was beaten by plainclothes policemen of Soc Son district. Due to the assault, she suffered a birth miscarriage.

Hue is among dozens of activists speaking up against fee collecting of wrongly-placed BOT toll booths in many places in Vietnam, including the Bac Thang Long-Noi Bai BOT.

Many anti-BOT activists have been persecuted by plainclothes agents and thugs in recent months. Mr. Ha Van Nam and six others were convicted and sentenced to between 18 months and 36 months on the allegation of �disturbing public orders.�

So far this year, Vietnam�s communist regime has convicted four activists with a total of 11 years and three months of imprisonment and three years of probation. In addition, the regime has arrested seven activists, mostly on allegations in the national security provisions of the Criminal Code, raising the number of prisoners of conscience to 247 at least, according to Defend the Defenders� latest statistics.

Vietnamese authorities on Tuesday sentenced a young Facebook user to a five-year prison term on charges of spreading propaganda against the state for his online postings amid a deepening crackdown on freedom of expression in the one-party communist state.

Phan Cong Hai, 25, was convicted in the People�s Court of the central province of Nghe An under Article 117 of Vietnam�s 2015 Penal Code following a two-hour trial unattended by lawyers. He was the second Facebook user to be jailed in Vietnam this week and the latest in a heavy-handed campaign to censor what the 65 million users of the social platform can write or read.

Speaking to RFA�s Vietnamese Service following the trial, Phan�s father Phan Cong Binh said that he had seen his son only once following Phan�s Nov. 19 arrest after evading capture by police for almost six months.

�I was able to meet my son briefly on Dec. 24, 2019, but we couldn�t speak freely because the police were standing right next to us,� he said, adding that travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic have made it difficult to see Phan more frequently.

�Now, our family really doesn�t know what to do,� he said.

According to the indictment filed against him, Phan was identified by Nghe An police as the user of a Facebook account set up under the name Hung Manh which described efforts by Vietnamese youth to �offend the image� of the government and of Vietnamese Communist Party founder Ho Chi Minh.

The Facebook page came to the attention of the province�s Do Thanh High School in late 2018, and school authorities contacted police who issued a warrant for Phan�s arrest and began a nationwide search in May last year which ended when Phan returned to his native Ha Tinh province in November after taking refuge in Thailand.

Meanwhile, Vietnam�s Ninh Kieu District Court in Can Tho City on Monday handed another Facebook user an 18-month prison term for sharing a story on Facebook in January about a deadly government crackdown during a politically sensitive land dispute at the Dong Tam commune outside Hanoi.

Chung Hoang Chuong, better known by his nickname Lucky, was found guilty of �abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the State, lawful rights and interests of organizations and/or citizens� in violation of Article 331 of the Vietnamese Penal Code.

Facebook under fire

Facebook has come under fire from Vietnamese and international rights activists after the social media giant publicly admitted it has agreed to help communist authorities censor posts critical of the government.

On April 21, two Facebook employees told the Reuters news agency that the company�s servers in Vietnam were taken offline for about seven weeks earlier in the year until Facebook agreed to government demands to remove posts considered by authorities to have criticized the communist state.

In a statement condemning Facebook�s decision to comply with government demands, Amnesty International Human Rights Advisor William Nee warned that �governments around the world will see this as an open invitation to enlist Facebook in the service of state censorship.�

�The Vietnamese authorities� ruthless suppression of freedom of expression is nothing new, but Facebook�s shift in policy makes them complicit,� he added.

In an emailed statement to RFA on April 22, Facebook spokesperson Amy Sawitta Lefevre defended her company�s action, saying that though freedom of expression is a fundamental human right, Facebook risked being blocked by authorities in Vietnam if the company refused to comply.

�We have taken this action to ensure our services remain available and usable for millions of people in Vietnam, who rely on them every day,� Lefevre said.

Vietnamese activist Tran Bang said that Facebook�s decision to bow to government demands �will block the ears, mouths, and eyes of Vietnam�s people, just as if there was no Facebook here at all.�

�Tens of millions of Facebook users have posted news from many different sources, helping people access truthful information about politics, society, and the economy," he told RFA on April 27.

"By blocking and removing stories in accordance with the authorities� requirements, [Facebook] is complicit with the dictatorship in violating human rights and freedom of expression in Vietnam."

�This means that Facebook is no different from the communist police,� he said.

Refining repression

In a report this year, the media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said that �as Vietnam�s citizens become increasingly engaged online, the authorities have been refining their digital repressive methods.�

The NGO said Vietnam�s army has created �a 10,000-strong military cyber-warfare department called �Force 47,� which is tasked with defending the Party and targeting dissident bloggers.�

�Under a new cyber-crime law that took effect in 2019, foreign online platforms are required to store their Vietnamese user data on servers in Vietnam and surrender it to the authorities when required,� RSF added.

Facebook user Dinh Van Hai told RFA that Facebook had been forced to cooperate with authorities to avoid being blocked behind a firewall. �But for me, Facebook must continue to prioritize freedom of the news as its top goal,� he said.

Though smaller social media networks have recently been set up in Vietnam, these typically block content widely shared on Facebook and are not widely used, Ha Hoang Hop�a researcher at Singapore�s Institute of Southeast Asian Studies�told RFA in a text message sent on April 27.

�Vietnamese social networks have not attracted as many users as Facebook, and they can�t compete,� he said.

No room for dissent

Vietnam, whose ruling Communist Party controls all media and tolerates no dissent, ranks 175th of 180 countries on the 2020 RSF�s World Press Freedom Index.

�As Vietnam�s media all follow the Communist Party�s orders, the only sources of independently-reported information are bloggers and independent journalists, who are being subjected to ever-harsher harsh forms of persecution,� said RSF.

�To justify jailing them, the Party resorts increasingly to articles 79, 88 and 258 of the criminal code, under which �activities aimed at overthrowing the government,� �anti-state propaganda� and �abusing the rights to freedom and democracy to threaten the interests of the state� are punishable by long prison terms,� it said.

Vietnam has also been consistently rated �not free� in the areas of internet and press freedom by Freedom House, a U.S.-based watchdog group.

The People�s Court of Ninh Kieu district, Can Tho City on April 27 convicted local resident Chung Hoang Chuong of �abusing democratic freedom� under Article 331 of the country�s Criminal Code for his post on Facebook, Defend the Defenders has learned.

The court sentenced him to 18 months in prison in the trial the defendant has not been protected by his own lawyer while his wife was informed about the first-instance hearing just 20 minutes before it started.

Mr. Chuong, 43, was detained on January 11 this year. According to the indictment, Mr. Chuong has conducted online activities on his Facebook account Ch??ng May M?n where he wrote or shared numerous statuses regarding hot issues Vietnam, including human rights abuse, serious nationwide environmental pollution, systemic corruption and the government�s weak response to China�s violations of the country�s sovereignty in the East Sea (South China Sea). His latest statuses on his Facebook page were about the military attack in Dong Tam commune carried out by the Ministry of Public Security and the Hanoi Police Department in the early morning of January 9 in which police killed at least two civilians.

His wife reported on her Facebook page that during the trial, the procuracy representative said Chuong should not write about the Dong Tam assault, because it is the issue of Hanoi and the capital city�s authorities are responsible for settle it.

Mr. Chuong has been the second Facebooker being detained for their online activities amid increasing crackdown on the local dissent. After him, Vietnam�s security forces arrested three others on different allegations. Ms. Ma Phung Ngoc Phu was charged with the same allegation while Ms. Dinh Thi Thu Thuy and Dinh Van Phu were alleged with �conducting anti-state propaganda� under Article 117 while former prisoner of conscience Tran Duc Thach was charged with subversion.

Since the Cyber Security Law become effective in early 2019, Vietnam has arrested more than two dozens of Facebookers on allegations of �conducting anti-state propaganda� and �abusing democratic freedom� in the National Security provisions of the Criminal Code, and sentenced 17 of them to between one and 11 years in prison, according to Defend the Defenders� statistics.

Along with arresting Facebookers and charging them with controversial criminal offenses in the national security provisions of the Criminal Code, security forces in different localities have summoned hundreds of local Facebookers for interrogation about their Facebook posts.

Regarding Covid-19 alone, around 300 Facebookers have been fined between VND5 million ($220) and VND15 million for disseminating news on the pandemic which are considered fake news by the communist regime. They were forced to delete their posts and promised not to repeat �wrongdoings,� according to the state-controlled media.

Vietnams� regime has also pressured on Facebook, reducing its local traffic by switching off their serves in the country so the American firm has been agreed to censor political posts in a bid to protect its economic interests in the market with over 65 million accounts, according to the recent report of Reuters.

While the whole country is focusing on dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak, Vietnam�s communist regime does not forget to cement its political monopoly by intensifying its crackdown on local dissent, arresting the third activist within two weeks.

This time, its prey is former prisoner of conscience Tran Duc Thach, 68, 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.

On April 23, security forces arrested Mr. Thach on allegation of conducting �Activities against the people�s government� under Article 109 of the country�s Criminal Code, 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.

According to the state-controlled media, 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 same 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.

After leaving the 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 which the communist soldiers with the support of China and the Soviet Unions as well as the communist bloc in Eastern Europe defeated South Vietnam backed by the US and its allies and unified the country in 1975. 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.

The arrest of Thach was made three days after the communist regime rejected the appeal of human rights activist and environmental campaigner Nguyen Nang Tinh, upholding his sentence of 11 years in prison and five years of probation. Both Thach and Tinh are strongly protesting China�s invasions of Vietnam�s sovereignty in the East Sea.

Last week, China sent a diplomatic note to the UN Secretary-General to reaffirm its illegal claim of nearly entire East Sea, including the two archipelagos Paracels and Spratlys that Vietnam has controlled since the 18th century, and demand Vietnam to withdraw its crews and facilities in the resource-rich sea which is also very important for international trade.

Thach is the third activist being arrested within two weeks. On April 10, authorities in Can Tho arrested Ma Phung Ngoc Phu on allegation of �abusing democratic freedom� and eight days later, Dinh Thi Thu Thuy from Hau Giang province was detained and charged with �conducting anti-state propaganda,� both were arrested for their online posts which are considered harmful for the regime. The arrests were made after the call of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet to release prisoners of conscience in a bid to protect their health amid increasing COVID-19 pandemic.

On April 20, the Higher People�s Court in Hanoi upheld the sentence of 11 years in prison and five years of probation against human rights activist Nguyen Nang Tinh, who is also strongly protesting China�s expansionism in the East Sea.

Vietnam�s communist regime has intensified its crackdown on local dissent from late 2015 when the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam prepared for its 12th National Congress. More than 100 activists have been arrested and charged with controversial allegations in the National Security provisions of the Penal Code or the Criminal Code, 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 his assistant Le Thu Ha were freed but forced to live in exile in Germany. It is unknown Thach�s latest arrest 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 it.

With the new arrests, Vietnam is holding at least 245 prisoners of conscience, according to Defend the Defenders�s statistics. More arrests are expected in the coming months as the ruling party is preparing for its 13th five-year congress slated in early 2021.

An appeals court in Vietnam on Monday upheld a lower court�s verdict in sentencing a Catholic music teacher to 11 years in jail for posting online criticisms of the one-party communist state and the government, the convicted man�s lawyer told RFA�s Vietnamese Service.

Nguyen Nang Tinh, 45, who teaches at a provincial arts and cultural college, was arrested in May 2019 after he was found writing and sharing what authorities deemed anti-state posts and videos on his Facebook account for seven years.

The posts included protests against Vietnam�s law on special economic zones that many citizens fear will favor Chinese investment in the country, and demonstrations against a Taiwanese company that dumped toxic waste into the ocean that caused an environmental disaster off the nation�s central coast in April 2016.

The Council of Judges of the People�s Court in north-central Vietnam�s Nghe An province upheld the 11-year sentence, plus five years of probation with restricted movement, that teacher Nguyen Nang Tinh was handed for the series of Facebook posts published between 2011 and 2018.

The presiding judge said the sentence served as a warning to those who wanted to capitalize on the rights to democracy and freedom by opposing the state, contradicting achievements in Vietnam�s progress with reform.

�At the appeals trial, Nguyen admitted to using Facebook accounts to share stories but affirmed that those stories were not aimed at opposing Vietnam�s government,� said defense attorney Dang Dinh Manh.

�I think this is an unfair sentence to give Nguyen, based on the defendant�s right to freedom of expression and on guarantees provided in the U.N.�s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that say everyone is entitled to express their own points of view,� he said.

Vietnam is a signatory to the multilateral treaty that commits its parties to respect the civil and political rights of individuals, including freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, electoral rights, and rights to due process and a fair trial.

Dang noted that in writing the online posts, Nguyen had exercised his right to free speech guaranteed under Vietnam�s constitution and had contributed to improving state policies.

Hunger strike to resume

The teacher had been on a hunger strike while in prison between March 13 and April 17, during which time he was not allowed to pray, read religious books, or meeting with Catholic priests, Dang said.

Thought the music teacher ended the hunger strike when he was informed about his appeals trial, he now will resume it because that process is over, the attorney said.

Dang said that he and another attorney, Nguyen Van Mieng, spent two days traveling by private car from Ho Chi Minh City to Nghe An to take part in the trial.

Nguyen�s wife, Nguyen Thi Tinh, could not attend her husband�s trial on account of lockdowns in Vietnam to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, which on Monday registered 268 confirmed cases but no fatalities.

On April 18, Vietnamese police arrested another social media user, Dinh Thi Thu Thuy, on charges of �smearing leaders,� state media reported.

The resident of Nga Bay in the southern province of Hau Giang has been charged under Section 117 of Vietnam�s Penal Code for making and spreading anti-state information and materials.

Dinh had created many Facebook accounts since 2018 to edit and share hundreds of posts and other materials opposing the state and smearing the Communist Party�s leaders, state media said.

Vietnam police reported in June 2018 that Dinh was also present at a demonstration outside Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica in Ho Chi Minh City to protest against proposed laws on the creation of special economic zones and on cybersecurity, the latter of which called for restrictions on the internet that would give the state greater surveillance and censorship powers.

Another Dong Tam arrest

Police also have arrested another resident of Hoanh village in the rural commune Dong Tam, where about 3,000 security forces conducted a violent early morning assault on residents during a land protest in early 2019 outside Vietnam�s capital Hanoi, an activist said.

On April 19, authorities picked up Nguyen Van Chung, son of Bui Thi Duc, a woman who is among 28 other villagers arrested during the bloody clash on Jan. 9, activist Trinh Ba Phuong told RFA on Monday.

The villagers apprehended following the incident have been charged with committing murder, illegally possessing weapons, and opposing officers on duty.

Nguyen was not arrested at his home in Dong Tam, but in Ho Chi Minh City, also called Saigon, where he was working as an assistant truck driver, Trinh said.

�Last night, he was arrested and cruelly beaten in Saigon,� Trinh said. �Those who witnessed the arrest questioned police about it, but they said that Nguyen was a dangerous person and had to be arrested.�

During a meeting with Hanoi authorities on the same day as the arrest, Vietnam�s Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc told officials to resolve the Dong Tam issue, consolidate the political system and develop new rural policies.

The Dong Tam clash was the latest flare-up in a long-running dispute over a military airport construction site about 25 miles south of Vietnam�s capital Hanoi.

A report drawn from witness accounts and released seven days after the Jan. 9 clash with security forces said that police had attacked first during the deadly incident that claimed the lives of the Dong Tam village chief and three police officers.

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

Vietnam�s communist regime has not stopped its crackdown on the local dissent amid increasing threat of COVID-19 outbreak nationwide, arresting the 7th activist so far this year.

On April 18, authorities in the Mekong Delta province of Hau Giang arrested female activist Dinh Thi Thu Thuy, charging her with �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.

Ms. Thuy will be held incommunicado for at least four months during the investigation period and faces imprisonment of between seven and 12 years in prison if she is convicted, according to the current Vietnamese law.

Citing information from police, the state-controlled media reported that Ms. Thuy has created a number of Facebook accounts to disseminate numerous articles to distort the communist regime�s policies and defame its leadership. She was also accused of criticizing the communist regime�s measures in dealing with COVID-19.

Thuy is an activist participating in the mass peaceful demonstration in Ho Chi Minh City on June 10, 2018 which aimed to protest two bills on Special Economic Zone and Cyber Security. The first seeks to favor Chinese investors while the two countries are disputing over the East Sea (South China Sea) while the second bill which became law from 2019 strives to silence online government critics. She was detained, beaten and interrogated, and fined with money before being released.

In recent years, she has been under constant persecution of the local police who often summoned her to their station for interrogation about her posts on Facebook.

Thuy is the seventh detained activist and the second Facebooker being arrested since the beginning of 2020 on the allegation of �conducting anti-state propaganda.� The first was Dinh Van Phu, who is from the Central Highlands province of Dak Nong and was arrested on January 9.

In January-April, police in Can Tho City arrested Mr. Chung Hoang Chuong and Ms. Ma Phung Ngoc Phu on allegation of �Abusing democratic freedom� under Article 331 of the Criminal Code for their online posts.

In addition, authorities in Gia Lai detained three religious activists named Ju, Lup, and Kunh in mid-March after chasing them in the past eight years. The trio, who was forced to live in a forest during the past eight years, was likely charged with �Sabotaging implementation of solidarity policies� per Article 116 of the Criminal Code with imprisonment of between seven and 15 years. Vietnam�s communist regime often uses this allegation to imprison religious activists.

With the arrest of Ms. Thuy, Vietnam is holding at least 244 prisoners of conscience, 26 of them are held in pre-trial detention which may last more than two years, according to Defend the Defenders� statistics.

Ms. Truong Thi Ha reported that police in Quang Binh confiscated her personnel items including passport, diary and cell phone before placing her under quarantine when she returned from Thailand on a bus in late March.

Ha said she was kept by Vietnam�s security when she entered the homeland from Laos. In the past several years, Ha reportedly participated in short courses on human rights in the EU and has recently worked for a human rights group in Bangkok.

Ha said she was allowed to return to her parents� house without having the items confiscated by police. She expects to be summoned by security forces in the coming days for interrogation for her activities in recent years.

Ha is a young activist, participating in peaceful demonstrations in Ho Chi Minh City on June 10, 2018 to protest two bills on Special Economic Zones and Cyber Security. She was reportedly beaten by police after being detained and held for several days.

Graduated law in HCM City Law University, Ha has pledged to be a lawyer to assist vulnerable groups. She has done an internship with prominent human rights attorneys Le Cong Dinh and Tran Vu Hai.

Two prisoners of conscience Ngo Van Dung and Le Quy Loc have reportedly been beaten by police in Phan Dang Luu temporary detention facility under the authority of Ho Chi Minh City Police Department while waiting for their first-instance hearing.

The incident occurred on April 12, according to relatives of other prisoners of conscience who are held in the same facility. The information was passed after the regular visits on Friday which were resumed after months of suspension due to applied measures during the Coronavirus outbreak.

Accordingly, many prisoners of conscience held in the facility said that they saw dozens of policemen brutally assaulted the two men who were arrested in early September 2018 on allegation of �disruption of security� under Article 118 of the country�s Criminal Code for their plan to hold peaceful demonstrations.

In response, the prisoners of conscience and their cellmates protested the attacks by using their personal items and hands to knock their cell doors.

After that, the police took the two men out of the facility. One week later, they returned Loc to his cell and he told them that he suffered serious injuries and was hospitalized for treatment.

Meanwhile, Mr. Dung was transferred to Chi Hoa, another temporary detention facility also under the authority of HCM City Police Department. His relatives have yet to be permitted to visit him since late January.

Mr. Dung, 51, and Mr. Loc, 44, are members of the unregistered group Hi?n Ph�p (Constitution) which strives to educate the public about the human rights they are entitled to under Vietnam�s 2013 Constitution by disseminating the country�s 2013 Constitution among citizens. Its members were active during the mass demonstration in HCM City on June 10, 2018 in which tens of thousands of Vietnamese rallied on streets to protest the communist regime�s plan to approve two bills on Special Economic Zones and Cybersecurity

They were arrested in early September 2018 together with 6 members of the group named Ms. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Hanh, Mrs. Hoang Thi Thu Vang, Mr. Do The Hoa, Mr. Ho Dinh Cuong, Mr. Tran Thanh Phuong, and Ms. Doan Thi Hong. While Hanh and Vang were charged with the allegation of �disruption of security� under Clause 1 of Article 118 of the Criminal Code with imprisonment of between five and 15 years in prison, the other six are subjected to the allegation under Clause 2 of the same article with imprisonment of between two and seven years if are convicted.

All of them were kidnapped by HCM City�s police on September 2-4, 2018, and held incommunicado for months. Their families had not been informed about their detentions and charges for months after they went to different state agencies and police stations to ask for their status and found out that they were kept by the city�s police.

In order to prevent similar protests in early September 2018, Vietnam�s security forces launched a big campaign to persecute local dissent and all members of the Hi?n Ph�p group became their targets. Two other members of the group named Huynh Truong Ca and Le Minh The were arrested and convicted of �conducting anti-state propaganda� and �abusing democratic freedom,� respectively while three others were forced to relocate in Thailand to avoid being arrested.

The People�s Court of HCM City set up the first-instance hearing on their cases in late 2019 and early 2020 but postponed due to the Covid-19 outbreak and other unclear reasons.

It is expected that the activists would be convicted and sentenced to lengthy sentences after Vietnam�s communist regime got all it wants, including the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA). On February 12, the European Parliament approved the pact, ignoring the call for postponing the agreement by numerous international and Vietnamese human rights groups. Although the EU says the pact may be postponed or terminated if Vietnam�s human rights record gets worsened, it is unlikely Hien Phap activists will be freed or receive light sentences.

Vietnam continues to be among the world�s biggest prisons for activists, holding at least 247 prisoners of conscience, including ten members of Hi?n Ph�p group, according to Defend the Defenders� latest statistics.

Meanwhile, torture and inhumane treatment is still systemic in Vietnam although the country ratified the UN Convention on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in 2014. Every year, dozens of suspects and inmates die in police custody and the authorities say their deaths were caused by illness, suicide or attacks of other inmates while their families and activists suspect that the real cause is police torture.

Ms. Truong Thi Ha reported that police in Quang Binh confiscated her personnel items including passport, diary and cell phone before placing her under quarantine when she returned from Thailand on a bus in late March.

Ha said she was kept by Vietnam�s security when she entered the homeland from Laos. In the past several years, Ha reportedly participated in short courses on human rights in the EU and has recently worked for a human rights group in Bangkok.

Ha said she was allowed to return to her parents� house without having the items confiscated by police. She expects to be summoned by security forces in the coming days for interrogation for her activities in recent years.

Ha is a young activist, participating in peaceful demonstrations in Ho Chi Minh City on June 10, 2018 to protest two bills on Special Economic Zones and Cyber Security. She was reportedly beaten by police after being detained and held for several days.

Graduated law in HCM City Law University, Ha has pledged to be a lawyer to assist vulnerable groups. She has done an internship with prominent human rights attorneys Le Cong Dinh and Tran Vu Hai.

Armed police in south-central Vietnam’s coastal Quang Ngai province attacked a crowd of people blocking garbage trucks from entering a long-disputed waste-processing plant over the weekend, arresting some 20 participants, a local source said Monday.

Citizen video emerged on Facebook over the weekend that claimed to show hundreds of officers armed with shields, batons, and police dogs on March 13 descending on the roadblock outside the plant in La Van village, in Duc Co district’s Pho Thanh commune, which had been in place since 2018.

The footage appeared to show several officers singling out protesters and beating them before taking them away for detention.

On Monday, local residents confirmed the incident in interviews with RFA’s Vietnamese Service.

“On March 8, police forces came to La Van village,” one source said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisal by local authorities.

“We told them the landfill was under dispute, meaning no garbage trucks were supposed to enter, but the trucks had still come in droves. In the past, we [villagers] were just observing without taking action, but things took a different turn on March 13.”

The Higher People’s Court in Hanoi has postponed the appeal of jailed human rights activist and environmental campaigner Nguyen Nang Tinh scheduled on March 18 without giving an explanation.

Mr. Tinh, 44, arrested by Nghe An province’s security forces on May 29, 2019 and charged with “conducting anti-state propaganda” under Article 117 of the Penal Code. In the first-instance hearing carried out by the People’s Court of Nghe An in November last year, he was convicted and sentenced to 11 years in jail and five years of probation.

Authorities in Nghe An said Mr. Tinh has used his Facebook account Nguyễn Năng Tĩnh to post and share articles and videos as well as images with content defaming state leaders and distort the ruling communist party’s policies.

Mr. Tinh, who is a lecturer of Nghe An College of Cultural and Art, is very active in promoting human rights and multi-party democracy, and speak out about the country’s issues such as systemic corruption, human rights abuse, widespread environmental pollution, and China’s violations to Vietnam’s sovereignty in the East Sea (South China Sea) and the weak response of the communist government in Hanoi.

There are some videoclips on Youtube in which Mr. Tinh tough students to sing a number of patriotic songs composed by dissidents in which the government is criticized for suppressing anti-China activists.

The People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City has suddenly postponed the first-instance hearing against eight members of the unregistered group named Hiến Pháp (Constitution), just one day prior to the trial scheduled on March 10 in the country’s biggest economic hub.

The court announced its decision when relatives of the defendants were on their ways heading to HCM City, some of them from provinces hundreds of kilometers to the city, Defend the Defenders has learned.

The court did not point out the reasons for its decision but Covid-19 outbreak in Vietnam may be the concern for it.

Two of the defendants named Ms. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Hanh and Ms. Hoang Thi Thu Vang are charged with Clause 1 of Article 118 “Disruption of security” of the Penal Code and face imprisonment of between seven and 15 years in prison while the six remaining Mr. Ngo Van Dung, Ms. Doan Thi Hong, Mr. Ho Dinh Cuong, Mr. Le Quy Loc, Mr. Tran Thanh Phuong and Mr. Do The Hoa are accused of the same allegation but under Clause 2 with the risk of being sentenced to between two and seven years in jail if are convicted.

All of them were kidnapped by security forces in HCM City in the first days of September 2018 after they had called for street demonstrations on the occasion of the country’s Independence Day (September 2). Police held them incommunicado for months without informing their families and continued keeping them isolated from outside for around one year after their families found them being imprisoned.

The group was established in 2017 with the aim to enhance civil rights among Vietnamese by disseminating the country’s Constitution approved by the communist-controlled parliament in 2013. Its members were active figures of the mass demonstration in HCM City on June 10, 2018 in which tens of thousands of residents rallied on streets to protest two bills on Special Economic zone and Cyber Security. The first seems to favor Chinese investors amid increasing tensions in the East Sea (South China Sea) while the second aims to silence online government critics.

Recently, Ms. Doan Thi Hong, who was detained when her daughter was about two years old, has informed her family that she is held in very severe conditions. Since being arrested, she has been under physical and mental torture constantly, according to the information she gave her older sister.

Despite doing nothing special harmful for the country, Hiến Pháp group has been targetted 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.

A court in southern Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City on Monday rejected the appeal of an Australian citizen convicted last year on charges of engaging in terrorism, sending him and two men convicted with him back to prison to serve their full terms.

Chau Van Kham, 70, a resident of Sydney Australia and member of the banned U.S.-based Viet Tan opposition party, was sentenced on Nov. 11, 2019 to a prison term of 12 years. Two men convicted with him—Nguyen Van Vieng and Tran Van Quyen—were handed terms of 11 and 10 years respectively.

Labeled a terrorist group by Vietnam in October 2016, Viet Tan describes itself instead as committed to peaceful, nonviolent struggle to promote democracy and human rights in Vietnam, and all three of those convicted had rejected prosecutors’ accusations of terrorism in appealing their sentences, one of their lawyers said.

Speaking to RFA’s Vietnamese Service on Monday following the court hearing, defense attorney Nguyen Van Mieng said that the three defendants admitted joining Viet Tan in 2010 but said that terrorism had never been proposed as a tactic in any of the meetings they had attended.

“Chau said that if he had ever thought that Viet Tan promoted terrorism, he would never have joined,” Nguyen said, adding that Nguyen Van Vieng also declared that he had never heard terrorism planned or discussed at any Viet Tan meeting.

‘The latest victims’

In a statement given on Monday by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), Australia—where Chau had worked as a baker—voiced disappointment that Chau’s appeal had been rejected.

“We are concerned about the length of Mr Chau’s sentence, particularly given his health and welfare may be severely impacted by serving such a sentence at his age,” DAFTA said in a report by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

“Vietnamese authorities understand our strong interest in his wealth and welfare,” DAFTA said, adding, “Australian officials have raised Mr Chau’s case and will continue to do so.”

Meanwhile, also speaking to ABC, Elaine Pearson of Human Rights Watch called Chau and his co-defendants “the latest victims in a spiraling crackdown on dissent and free speech within Vietnam—they are among hundreds of political prisoners who are currently detained.”

“The Australian Government should redouble its efforts to press strongly for Chau’s return to Australia,” Pearson said.

“On some occasions, Vietnam has allowed political prisoners to be released into exile in Europe or the U.S., but that will only happen if there is strong pressure from the Australian Government,” she said.

This morning, a Hanoi court sentenced Nhat, a blogger with the U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Asia's Vietnamese language service, to ten years in prison after a half-day trial for “abusing his position and power while on duty” as a reporter, a crime under Clause 3, Article 356, of Vietnam’s penal code, according to news reports, a report from his employer, and his daughter Thuc Doan Truong, who communicated with CPJ via messaging app.

Nhat had been held in pre-trial detention in Vietnam since January 28, 2019, two days after he went missing from a shopping mall in Bangkok, Thailand, as CPJ documented at the time. Truong previously told CPJ that she believes Nhat was taken from Thailand against his will.

Truong told CPJ that her father intends to appeal today’s verdict.

“Truong Duy Nhat was convicted for his journalism, not the bogus charges Vietnamese authorities dreamt up to silence his critical voice,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “His appeal must not be contested, and he should be released immediately and unconditionally. Vietnam must stop jailing journalists on arbitrary and trumped-up charges.”

Nhat’s last blog post before his arrest, dated January 23, 2019, was a commentary on protests in Venezuela and prospects for change in Vietnam. Nhat had applied for refugee status at a U.N. office in Bangkok on January 25, Radio Free Asia reported at the time.

Police initially charged Nhat with illegally acquiring property, but later changed those charges after failing to find enough evidence to convict him, according to Radio Free Asia.

“No matter how long they want to imprison my dad, I’m sure that he did nothing wrong,” Truong told CPJ. “[Today’s sentencing] is just an excuse for them to stop him from writing critical articles.”

Nhat previously served two years in prison for "abusing democratic freedoms to infringe on the interest of the state," for his critical blogging on the ruling Communist Party's leadership, CPJ reported at the time.

He is currently being held at Hanoi’s T-16 detention center; it was not immediately clear if he would be transferred to another detention facility after today’s verdict, Truong told CPJ.

Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security did not immediately respond to CPJ’s emailed request for comment on today’s ruling.

On February 21, the People’s Court of Khanh Hoa province upheld the one year of non-custodial reform on human rights attorney Tran Vu Hai and his wife Ngo Tuyet Phuong on tax evasion charge under Article 161 of the 1999 Penal Code.

After one week, the court issued its final decision to keep the sentences given by the lower court, the People’s Court of Nha Trang City. Accordingly, Mr. Hai and his wife have to pay an administrative fine of VND20 million ($850) each for the crime they have not committed, according to the lawyers providing legal assistance for the experienced couple attorneys.

According to the indictment against them, they were accused of committing a tax evasion worth VND276 million in a property deal in 2014. Mr. Hai and his wife reportedly bought a land parcel from Khanh Hoa province-based citizenNgo Van Lam and Vietnamese Norwegian Nguyen Thi Ngoc Hanh. The deal value was about VND16 billion but the sellers reported to the local authorities just VND1.8 billion, by that way the sellers paid less tax for the deal. The province’s tax authorities had approved the deal.

Nearly two dozens lawyers took part in the appeal to protect Mr. Hai. Like in the first-instance hearing on November 15 last year, Khanh Hoa province’s authorities deployed a large number of police officers to block all the roads leading to the court areas and the lawyers were under strict security check-up before entering the courtroom. They were requested to leave all electrical devices, including laptops and cell phones outside. A few reporters of the state-run newspapers were allowed to enter the courtroom to cover the trial.

The defense lawyers said as buyers, Mr. Hai and his wife are not subjects for tax payment for the deal, and they are innocent since the province’s tax authorities approved the deal. Ms. Hanh is a citizen of Norway and the house she sold to Mr. Hai was the only house she owned so she is not required to pay tax for the deal, according to current Vietnam’s law.

Mr. Hai reported on his Facebook page that the judge ordered the representative of the Nha Trang tax authorities and the representative of the province’s Procuracy not to answer the questions of lawers.

Authorities in Khanh Hoa probed the case in early July last year and placed the four under restricted travel, including travel abroad. In addition, Khanh Hoa police also conducted searching Mr. Hai’s law office and private residence in Hanoi, in which they allegedly took away a large sum of money and documents from other cases.

It is clear that the allegation and convictions against Mr. Hai and his wife are political as recently the Ministry of Public Security denied Mr. Hai’s request for representing former prisoner of conscience Truong Duy Nhat who is accused of “power abuse” after being kidnapped in Bangkok and taken to Vietnam in late January.

Lawyer Hai is well-known for his participation in sensitive cases to represent victims of injustice, victims of forced land appropriation and political dissidents.

Police officers from Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security have kidnapped Hanoi-based activist Nguyen Thuy Hanh for interrogation for hours about their assistance given to land petitioners in Dong Tam commune, My Duc district.

On the afternoon of January 20, Mrs. Hanh and her husband Huynh Ngoc Chenh went to the Vietnam Bank for Commerce (Vietcombank)’s branch in Ba Dinh district to question the bank for freezing her account with around VND528 million ($22,500) of donations for the family of Mr. Le Dinh Kinh, a 84-year-old resident of Dong Tam who was killed by police during the raid on January 9.

During a meeting with the bank’s representatives, Mr. Chenh recognized that plainclothes policemen were deployed in the office, probably the bank branch informed police for the presence of the couple.

After receiving unsatisfied answers from the bank’s representatives, the couple left the office to return home with their motorbike. Not far from the bank, they were stopped by police officers in plainclothes who said Hanh must to go with them to their office for “working.” Hanh was forced to go in their car and the vehicle went to the Security Investigation Agency under the Ministry of Public Security at Nguyen Gia Thieu street, Hanoi where many activists were interrogated and beaten.

During the three-hour interrogation, five police officers questioned about the 50K Fund she established last year for assisting prisoners of conscience and activist-at-risks, and the donations from Vietnamese in the country and abroad for Mr. Kinh’s family after the bloody police raid on January 9.

During the interrogation, police officers said they would arrest some other activists, including land petitioner and human rights defender Trinh Ba Phuong for his covering news on the brutal police attack in Dong Tam on January 9, Hanh said.

The abduction and the interrogation against Mrs. Hanh were made few days after her account in Vietcombank was suspended. On January 13, the Ministry of Public Security said on its website that the ministry had ordered local banks to freeze accounts of some activists, including Mrs. Hanh who have been receiving donations for persecuted Dong Tam residents. The ministry said the financial aids from people can help Dong Tam citizens purchase weaponry to deal with the government.

Meanwhile, Vietnamese activists continue to call for a boycott of Vietcombank’s service and ask the Japanese Mizuho to reconsider its investment in the Vietnamese bank. Currently, the Japanese side owns 15% stake in Vietcombank.

Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank), the largest commercial bank in communist-ruled Vietnam, has frozen a bank account of Hanoi-based activist Nguyen Thuy Hanh after she receives a large sum of donations for deceased elderly leader Le Dinh Kinh, who was killed by police in Hanoi on January 9.

On January 17, Mrs. Hanh went to the bank to withdraw the money gift for the family of the Dong Tam commune’s moral leader, the bank told her this account has been frozen. Asked for the reason, the bank refused the answer. It only gave her a copied document, showing VND525.45 million ($22,000) have been frozen.

Hanh, who is managing the 50K Fund for assisting prisoners of conscience and activists-at-risks, called on Vietnamese in the country and abroad to make donations for the family of Mr. Kinh after the deadly raid of Vietnam’s police on January 9 in which they killed him and destroyed his house. In addition, police arrested his two sons and two grandsons as well as his adopted daughter and charged them with “murder.”

After the call, Hanh has received more than thousands of small donations from Vietnamese across the globe. She had been placed in de facto house arrest for more than a week and plainclothes agents were deployed near her private residence in Hanoi until Friday.

Meanwhile, prominent dissident and political writer Pham Doan Trang has alerted that Vietnam’s security forces have been pressuring those people who had sent money support to Dong Tam villagers to admit that they are members of a certain political party when they provided “financial support” to Dong Tam villagers.

The police’s sinister goal is to try with all their might to create the existence of a group of terrorists in Dong Tam, and use that as an excuse to “attack, destroy the terrorists,” with aim to cover up their crime of having mounted a large-scale, organised attack against Dong Tam residents on January 9, said Trang, who has been among activists who established the “Dong Tam taskforce” to compile, verify and announce publicly all information relating to the police brutal attack in the location.

After Mrs. Hanh announced Vietcombank’s act, hundreds of activists have called for a boycott of the bank’s services and urged people to withdraw their money from the bank. They urged the bank to reconsider its decision in Mrs. Hanh’s case otherwise it will face a widespread boycott.

This is the second case of freezing activists’ accounts of Vietcombank. In 2015, it made the same act against prominent political dissident Nguyen Thanh Giang. However, it reopened his account after receiving a threat of boycotts of activists in the capital city at that time.

In response to the call for the boycott against Vietcombank, Deputy Minister of Public Security Luong Tam Quang said the bank’s move was requested by the ministry in a bid to deal with terrorism. He said many contributors to Mr. Kinh’s family have admitted that their donations are for purchasing weapons against Vietnam’s police.

On its website, the ministry has requested people not to send donations for Mr. Kinh’s family. It also admitted that it ordered Vietcombank to freeze the bank account of Mrs. Hanh.

Vietnam’s communist regime has postponed the first-instance hearing to try eight members of the unregistered group Hiến Pháp (Constitution) on the allegation “disruption of security” under Article 118 of the country’s Criminal Code” for their intention to participate in a peaceful demonstration in early September last year, Defend the Defenders has learned.

The People’s Court in Ho Chi Minh City made the decision to delay the trial on January 13, one day prior to the scheduled date, saying the postpone was due to the request of Mr. Le Quy Loc, one of the defendants, for summoning witness(es).

The court has not set the new date for the trial but it would be within 30 days from the day of canceling.

Some observers have linked the delay with the bloody attack of police in Dong Tam in which land rights activist Le Dinh Kinh was killed by riot police. The communist regime is willing to reduce social dissatisfaction which rose to its peak in the recent day so they don’t want people to get more anger from lengthy sentences which would be given for the group members.

According to the court’s announcement, Ms. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Hanh and Mrs. Hoang Thi Thu Vang are charged with the allegation of “disruption of security” under Clause 1 of Article 118 of the Criminal Code with imprisonment of between five and 15 years in prison. Six others named Mr. Do The Hoa, Mr. Ho Dinh Cuong, Mr. Tran Thanh Phuong, Mr. Ngo Van Dung, Mr. Le Quy Loc and Ms. Doan Thi Hong are subjected to the allegation under Clause 2 of the same article with imprisonment of between two and seven years if are convicted.

All of them were kidnapped by HCM City’s police on September 2-4, 2018 and held incommunicado for months. Their families had not been informed about their detentions and charges for months after they went to different state agencies and police stations to ask for their status and found out that they were kept by the city’s police.

Hiến Pháp (Constitution) is a group of activists working to educate the public about the human rights they are entitled to under Vietnam’s 2013 Constitution by disseminating the country’s 2013 Constitution among citizens. Its members were active during the mass demonstration in HCM City on June 10, 2018 in which tens of thousands of Vietnamese rallied on streets to protest the communist regime’s plan to approve two bills on Special Economic Zones and Cybersecurity.

In order to prevent similar protests in early September 2018, Vietnam’s security forces launched a big campaign to persecute local dissent and all members of the Hiến Pháp group became their targets. Two other members of the group named Huynh Truong Ca and Le Minh The were arrested and convicted of “conducting anti-state propaganda” and “abusing democratic freedom,” respectively while three others were forced to relocate in Thailand to avoid being arrested.

Defend the Defenders considers eight jailed members of the group as prisoners of conscience and the accusations against them are groundless.

Vietnam’s authorities have freed prisoner of conscience Tran Thi Nga but forced her to live in exile in the US.

Ms. Nga, who was arrested in February 2017 and sentenced to nine years in prison and five years of probation on charge of “conducting anti-state propaganda,” was taken from Gia Trung prison camp in the Central Highlands province of Gia Lai to Noi Bai International Airport during the midnight of January 10 where she and her two sons and husband were taking a flight to Atlanta (Georgia, the US). The United States had granted her asylum.

She has always refused to recognize her guilt so she was being subjected to psychological torture, death threats and physical violence by fellow inmates and prison guards.

Vietnam’s communist regime has detained the second Facebooker so far this year, accusing him of “abusing democratic freedom” under Article 331 of the country’s Criminal Code.

On January 11, authorities in the Mekong Delta’s economic hub of Can Tho detained a local resident named Chung Hoang Chuong, 43, for his online activities. He will be held incommunicado in next three days for preliminary investigation and the pre-trial detention would be kept longer for months.

According to a notice of Ninh Kieu district’s police, Mr. Chuong has conducted online activities which “Abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the State, lawful rights and interests of organizations and/or citizens.”

His family told Defend the Defenders that he was detained at his cell phone shop in Ninh Kieu commune. Police also came to his private residence to confiscate his wife’s laptop and camera set.

Chuong’s detention came after he wrote and shared a number of articles on his Facebook account Chương May Mắn regarding numerous issues of Vietnam, including human rights abuse, serious nationwide environmental pollution, systemic corruption and the government’s weak response to China’s violations of the country’s sovereignty in the East Sea (South China Sea). His latest statuses on his Facebook page were about the military attack in Dong Tam commune carried out by the Ministry of Public Security and the Hanoi Police Department in the early morning of January 9 in which police killed at least two civilians.

Mr. Chuong has been the second Facebooker being detained for their online activities amid increasing crackdown on the local dissent.

On January 9, authorities in the Central Highlands province of Dak Nong arrested Mr. Dinh Van Phu on allegation of “conducting anti-state propaganda” under Article 117 of the country’s Criminal Code. Mr. Phu, 47, will be held incommunicado in the next three months and face imprisonment of between seven and 12 years if is convicted.

Meanwhile, Vietnam’s government reportedly has pressured Facebook to remove articles criticizing the communist regime.

Since the Cyber Security Law become effective in early 2019, Vietnam has arrested nearly two dozens of Facebookers on allegations of “conducting anti-state propaganda” and “abusing democratic freedom” in the National Security provisions of the Criminal Code, and sentenced 17 of them to between one and 11 years in prison, according to Defend the Defenders’ statistics.

Vietnam’s authorities continue its crackdown on Facebookers for the second year after implementation of the Cyber Security law, arresting the first activist on the allegation of “conducting anti-state propaganda” under Article 117 of the Criminal Code.

State media has reported that on January 9, police in the Central Highlands province of Dak Nong arrested local resident Dinh Van Phu for his online activities and will keep him for at least three months for investigation. He will likely be held incommunicado during the pre-trial detention similar to other political cases.

According to the police, Mr. Phu, 47, was used several Facebook accounts such as “Jimy Nguyễn,” “Vinh Nguyễn Jimy,” and “Nguyễn Vinh” to disseminate articles and conduct live streams with content to distort policies of the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam and its government as well as defaming its leaders.

He is accused of triggering social dissatisfaction and calling for street demonstrations to protest the communist government regarding human rights violations, environmental pollution, systemic corruption as well as a weak response to China’s violations of the country’s sovereignty in the East Sea (South China Sea).

Police also mentioned that Mr. Phu participated in the peaceful demonstration in Ho Chi Minh City on June 10, 2018 to protest two bills on Special Economic Zones and Cyber Security. The first was considered to provide privileges for Chinese investors amid Beijing’s increasing aggressiveness in the East Sea while the second aims to silence the local dissent. He was reportedly arrested, beaten and fined with VND750,000 for “causing public disorders.”

Along with targeting groups in order to prevent the formation of political parties and civil society organizations, Vietnam’s communist regime is striving to crack down on online activists. Last year, it arrested 21 Facebookers, 14 of them were charged with “conducting anti-state propaganda” and five of them with “abusing democratic freedom” in the National Security provisions of the Criminal Code. As many as 12 Facebookers were sentenced to between five and 11 years in prison on allegation of “conducting anti-state propaganda,” significant lengthier sentences compared to the same allegation in other cases in the previous decade.

The ruling communist party is preparing its 13th National Congress scheduled in early 2021 and it will tighten social life. It is expected more arrest and harassment against local dissent in coming months.

Authorities in Ho Chi Minh City have rejected to grant a passport for former prisoner of conscience Le Cong Dinh, denying his right to freely travel abroad.

Mr. Dinh, who was imprisoned five years in 2009-2013 on the charge of subversion, applied for a new passport in the Immigration Management Division of HCM City’s Police Department on December 4. Two weeks later, on December 16, he received a denial announcement from an officer from the division who refused to point out the reason for the refusal.

In August last year, the city’s police also rejected his application.

The US-educated lawyer is among the leading pro-democracy activists in Vietnam. He was arrested in 2009 and initially charged with “conducting anti-state propaganda” and later changed into “subversion” in the same case of prominent activist and entrepreneur Tran Huynh Duy Thuc and Nguyen Tien Trung.

He continues to work for promoting human rights and multi-party democracy in Vietnam after being released in 203. This year, he is among the three activists winning annual prizes of the US-based Vietnam Human Rights Network.

Dinh is among more than 100 Vietnamese activists being barred from international travel. The Ministry of Public Security often uses government decree No. 136 to prevent political dissidents and human rights activists from going abroad with the common controversial reason “national security.” The communist regime has used a number of ways to halt their international travel by denial of granting passports, blocking at national border gates or confiscating their passports.

Vietnamese authorities are blocking defense lawyers from speaking with a journalist detained for criticizing Vietnam’s government, saying that their investigation into the writer’s case has not yet finished, one of the two attorneys told RFA on Thursday.

Independent journalist Pham Chi Dung was detained on Nov. 11 by security officers at his home in Ho Chi Minh City and charged with conducting “anti-state propaganda” under Article 117 of Vietnam’s Criminal Code.

According to police, Pham wrote anti-state articles and cooperated with foreign media to deliver “distorted information,” with rights group Defend the Defenders saying that Pham had contributed to Voice of America and the BBC, using different pen names.

Pham will be held in detention for at least the next four months as police finish their investigation, and if convicted could face a sentence of seven to 12 years.

Speaking on Thursday to RFA’s Vietnamese Service, defense attorney Manh Dinh Dang said that prosecutors informed him and fellow lawyer Mieng Van Nguyen on Dec. 16 that they can confer with their client only when investigators have finished their work.

“This limits lawyers’ ability to get involved,” Manh said, adding that lawyers’ access to their clients is typically restricted under Vietnamese law in cases of “national security,” with some cases dragging on for years.

Also speaking to RFA, former political prisoner Dai Van Nguyen, who was arrested on Dec. 16, 2015 on identical charges, said that he had immediately asked for a lawyer’s help when police officers invaded his home to conduct a search.

“But a representative from the prosecutor’s office presented a document saying this would not allowed until the police investigation was completed,” Dai said.

“This practice is stipulated in the Criminal Code, but it violates Vietnam’s constitution, which makes no distinction between ‘national security’ violations and ordinary [criminal] ones."

According to Vietnam’s constitution, detainees have the right to meet with lawyers, and lawyers have the right to defend their clients, Dai said.

“However, the Criminal Code doesn’t allow for this,” he said.

Pressured to admit guilt

Speaking to RFA, activist Kha Nguyen Dinh, who was freed from prison in October 2018 after serving a six-year term for handing out leaflets criticizing government policy over disputed islands in the South China Sea, said he too had been denied the right to see a lawyer following his arrest.

“I was not allowed to contact anyone, and I had no legal consultation,” Kha said.

“Only after I had been led to say things they wanted to hear was I allowed to see a lawyer,” Kha said, adding that barring access to lawyers during police investigations makes it easier for officials to pressure detainees to admit their “guilt” or make other statements against their interests.

Vietnam 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.

Estimates of the number of prisoners of conscience now held in Vietnam’s jails vary widely, with Human Rights Watch putting the number in October at 138. The rights group Defend the Defenders meanwhile puts the number as at least 240, with 36 convicted this year alone.

Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by An Nguyen. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Authorities in Vietnam Sunday clashed with citizens over a Christmas nativity scene display in a part of Ho Chi Minh City that has been embroiled in a land dispute.

A group of Catholic residents of the Loc Hung Vegetable Garden settlement in Ward 6, the city’s Tan Binh district, were attempting to set up the nativity scene over the weekend, but police, plainclothes security agents and militia were dispatched to the area to prevent the display.

The residents then began to object, saying that authorities were violating their rights to religious freedom.

According to the Facebook account account ‘Vườn rau Lộc Hưng’ (Loc Hung Vegetable Garden’), the incident occurred at 9 a.m. Sunday when the local authorities pulled down a wooden frame that would have been a part of the display.

The Loc Hung residents resumed building their nativity scene in the afternoon, so the authorities came back to stop them.

This caused the residents to resist and authorities arrested Cao Thi Thu, Pham Trung Hieu and Pham Duy Quang for protesting.

The three were released by 10 p.m. that evening.

The nativity display’s statues of Christian religious figures Mary and Joseph were destroyed in the clash.

“Yesterday’s suppression was so brutal,” Pham Duy Quang told RFA’s Vietnamese Service Monday.

“By 3:30 p.m., we had gathered to pray and prepare to set up the nativity scene. After praying, a large force consisting of various Ward 6 agencies showed up to destroy [it],” He said, adding, “They beat us, drove [us] into corners.”

Pham said that the three were accused of inciting a ‘mass gathering to disrupt social order’ and were asked to cooperate in police reports at the Ward 4 police station.

Cao discussed how she was physically assaulted by authorities prior to her arrest.

“We only gathered there to protect the nativity scene,” she said.

“I stood behind to set up, but then a large force came along. I am 58 years old and I have really weak hearing. But I was beaten in the face and trampled,” said Cao.

“I felt a brick from somewhere hit my foot. It was so painful so I picked up the brick and threw it away and began to flee. That’s when they arrested me and accused me of throwing the brick [at them] which is an administrative violation,” she said.

She added that the police asked her to accept either detention or a 750,000 dong (U.S. $32.35) fine, but she refused.

“I replied ‘Absolutely not, I won’t pay even or you detain me, so I signed the report without any fear. I threw the brick because I was in pain from being beaten by them,” she said.

Pham Trung Hieu told RFA that while in detention the three had been threatened.

“Prior to letting us go, they told us that from that time on we should not follow Cao Ha Chanh (a longtime resident of the settlement) or anyone else [from there],” said Pham.

“In my opinion, they were only threatening us because we have been lodging complaints over the past 20 years [because of the land dispute],” he added.

RFA attempted to contact the Ward 6 People’s Committee and the Tan Binh district police Monday but received no reply.

Early this year, the area was a flashpoint in a controversial two-day operation in which authorities demolished at least 112 houses in the settlement claimed by the Catholic Church, displacing hundreds of residents, who sources say are political dissidents. Meanwhile, veterans of the former Army of South Vietnam made their homes in the settlement.

While all land in Vietnam is ultimately held by the state, land confiscations have become a point of contention as residents accuse the government of pushing small landowners aside in favor of lucrative real estate projects, and of paying too little in compensation to those whose land is taken.

Police in Vietnam’s capital Hanoi on Sunday blocked access to a piano recital held in the city’s Opera House, roughing up a group of environmental activists who had hoped to attend and preventing them from entering, sources said.

The concert, titled “Awake” and performed by pianist Pho An My, featured an environmental theme, the civil society group Green Trees said in a Facebook posting after its members were turned away.

“A large crowd of security forces had gathered outside, just as if they were preparing to disperse a protest, and scores of people were roughed up,” the environmental advocacy group said, adding that paintings about the environment were forbidden from display in the concert hall.

“Security men were stationed every five meters [15 feet] surrounding the theater, and were stopping people from live-streaming or taking pictures. Only the security people were allowed cameras, and they pointed them at concertgoers like they were monitoring criminals,” Green Trees said.

“All gates to the theater were locked right after the concert started, so nobody could leave or enter, and no one could give the artist flowers.”

In its Facebook posting, Green Trees said that police may have thought that concert organizers had received funding from “foreign sources” by way of the environmental group, which also advocates for human rights, freedom of expression, and freedom of assembly in the one-party communist state.

'They were brutal to us'

Speaking to RFA’s Vietnamese Service on Nov. 15, Green Trees member Cao Vinh Thinh said that she and her husband had arrived at the Opera House at about 7:30 p.m. on the evening of the concert.

“As soon as we stopped our motorbike next to the theater, we were approached by a group of about 10 people, two of whom I recognized because they have followed me around for years,” Thinh said, adding that the group ordered her to return home, later forcing her and her husband into a car and driving them home themselves.

“I’m very upset,” Thinh said. “We had bought two tickets, but the money doesn’t matter. What matters most is how they treated us.”

“They were brutal to us, and they deprived us of our rights as citizens. We hadn’t broken any law or rule,” she said.

Also speaking to RFA, pianist Pho An My said that she had only focused on her performance and was unaware of what was happening outside.

“I’m just an artist, and I want to express my thoughts. I’m not an environmental activist,” she said.

Calls seeking comment from police in Hanoi’s Hoan Kiem district rang unanswered on Monday.

Civil society groups restricted

Independent civil society organizations are severely restricted by Vietnam’s communist government, which also controls all media, censors the internet, and restricts basic freedoms of expression.

On Oct. 25, Vietnamese authorities detained environmental activist and filmmaker Thinh Nguyen, a member of Green Trees, in what was thought to be the government’s response to a film, “Do Not be Afraid,” about other environmental activists who were detained for their advocacy.

Green Trees had called on Vietnam’s government just two years before to let it help monitor the payment of compensation to citizens affected by a massive toxic-waste spill in 2016 that left thousands jobless in four central coastal provinces.

Vietnam’s communist regime has convicted Mr. Huynh Minh Tam, 41, and his younger sister Huynh Thi To Nga, 36, of “conducting anti-state propaganda” under Article 117 of the country’s Criminal Code for their online postings critical to the regime, Defend the Defenders has learned.

In the first-instance hearing on November 28, the People’s Court of Dong Nai found Mr. Tam and Ms. Nga guilty of “Making, storing, spreading information, materials, items for the purpose of opposing the State of Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” sentencing him to nine years and giving her to five years in prison.

According to their relatives, both Tam and Nga had no their own lawyers.

The indictment said they were posting numerous articles on their Facebook accounts criticizing the communist government for failing to deal with the country’s problems such as human rights abuse, systemic corruption, widespread environmental pollution, and weak response to China’s violations of the country’s sovereignty in the East Sea (South China Sea).

Ms. Nga, a technician in the Saigon-based Nguyen Tri Phuong Hospital, reportedly to participate in the mass demonstration in Ho Chi Minh City on June 10, 2018 to protest two bills on Special Economic Zones and Cyber Security.

Mr. Tam was arrested on February 28 this year while his younger sister was kidnapped in her working place two days later. Police had not informed their families about the allegations against them and kept them incommunicado until their trial. Police also threatened their families, not allowing their relatives to contact with other activists.

Mr. Tam and Ms. Nga are among 21 activists being arrested this year for online activities, 14 of them were charged with “conducting anti-state propaganda” and five were alleged with “abusing democratic freedom” in the National Security provisions of the Criminal Code.

Vietnam’s communist regime has arrested 33 political dissidents, social activists and Facebookers so far this year, including prominent dissident journalist Pham Chi Dung. Hanoi has also convicted 39 activists, mostly on controversial allegations in the National Security provisions of the Criminal Code, sentencing them to a total 199.5 years in jail and 47 years of probation.

Vietnam is holding at least 240 prisoners of conscience, according to Defend the Defenders’ latest statistics. Hanoi always denies of holding any prisoners of conscience, saying it imprisons only law violators.

Vietnamese courts on Thursday sentenced six dissident bloggers and activists to long terms in prison amid a continuing crackdown on online expressions of dissent in the one-party communist state that has seen dozens of people jailed this year, sources said.

In southeastern Vietnam’s Dong Nai province, four men—Doan Viet Hoan, Vo Thuong Trung, Ngo Xuan Thanh, and Nguyen Dinh Khue—were handed prison terms of from 2.5 to three years each on charges of plotting to set explosives, for which no proof was shown in court, a defense attorney said.

“[Prosecutors] had no evidence to prove that the defendants were preparing explosions to go off on April 28, 2019," Nguyen Van Mieng—the lawyer for Nguyen Dinh Khue—told RFA’s Vietnamese Service after the trial.

“If they had wanted to cause explosions, they would have to have had wires, detonators, and material like that. But they had none of those things,” he said, adding, “The police only confiscated their cell phones and messages on the phones.”

Quoted by state media, a report prepared by prosecutors said the four men had gone online to read posts with “anti-state” content and had called for street protests on April 30, but Mieng said the men had wanted only to protest a price hike in electricity and gas and a law on special economic zones that many Vietnamese fear will favor Chinese investment in the country.

“They know nothing about how to make explosive devices,” Mieng said.

Unwarranted, unfair

In a separate case, a court in central Vietnam’s Thanh Hoa province sentenced Facebook user Pham Van Diep to a nine-year prison term for criticizing Vietnam’s government online for its handling of a 2016 toxic-waste spill that devastated the coastal areas of four Vietnamese provinces, leaving thousands jobless.

Speaking to RFA after the trial, attorney Ha Huy Son called Pham’s sentence unwarranted and unfair.

“He only expressed his opinion, and he did nothing to oppose the state,” he said. “He admitted what he did. He is critical of Marxism-Leninism and communism, but [the court] considers that a crime against the state of Vietnam.”

In another case, Facebook user Nguyen Chi Vung was handed a six-year prison term on Thursday by a court in southern Vietnam’s Bac Lieu province on charges of live-streaming anti-state content on his Facebook page and encouraging others to join in protests.

Call to delay trade talks

Meanwhile, prominent independent journalist Pham Chi Dung, who was detained at his home in Ho Chi Minh City on Nov. 21 for his criticism of the communist government, awaits investigation and trial on charges of “conducting anti-state propaganda” under Article 117 of Vietnam’s penal code.

In a Nov. 22 statement, European Parliament envoy for trade talks with Vietnam Saskia Bricmont voiced shock at the news of the arrest of the former communist party member, noting that Pham had written earlier to the parliament’s president and to EU trade officials to alert them to Vietnam’s deteriorating human rights situation.

Saskia is now asking for a delay in the ratification of European trade and investment agreements with Vietnam “until a certain number of conditions are fulfilled,” she said.

“The essential condition is a reform of the criminal code and its implementation with United Nations standards,” Saskia said, adding, “To show its good faith, we also demand that Vietnam release [its] political prisoners without delay.”

Writing on Nov. 21, the day of Pham’s arrest, Human Rights Watch deputy Asia director Phil Robertson called on the EU to “speak up for independent journalist Pham Chi Dung who simply called for Europe to demand real improvements in the human rights situation before ratifying the Europe-Vietnam [Free Trade Agreement].”

“By arresting Pham Chi Dung, Vietnam is showing its repressive intolerance of any dissenting voices and its determination to suppress efforts to foster an independent press in the country,” Robertson said.

“The EU, US and other like-minded countries should demand the immediate and unconditional release of Pham Chi Dung and the dropping of all charges against him.”

'Not Free'

Vietnam 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.

Estimates of the number of prisoners of conscience now held in Vietnam’s jails vary widely, with Human Rights Watch putting the number in October at 138. The rights group Defend the Defenders meanwhile puts the number as at least 240, with 36 convicted this year alone.

A court in Vietnam sentenced a Facebook user to six years in prison on Tuesday for a series of posts he made on the social media platform that the Southeast Asian country's government said were "anti-state".

Despite sweeping economic reform and increasing openness to social change, Vietnam's ruling Communist Party retains tight media censorship and does not tolerate criticism, and its dissent crackdown has shown signs of intensifying recently.

Nguyen Chi Vung, 38, was accused of "making and spreading anti-state information and materials" at the one-day trial at the People's Court of Bac Lieu province, in the Mekong Delta, the Ministry of Public Security said in a statement.

It said Vung had held 33 livestream sessions on Facebook "to share distorted information" and "encourage people to participate in protests during national holidays".

Reuters could not reach Vung's lawyers for comment.

Vung will be placed under house arrest for two years after serving his jail term, the statement said.

The court's Tuesday decision came days after a music teacher in the central province of Nghe An was convicted of the same offences and jailed for 11 years.

Facebook is widely used in the country and serves as the main platform for both e-commerce and dissent. Facebook said in May it increased the amount of content it restricted access to in Vietnam by more than 500% in the last half of 2018.

The ministry said in a separate statement on Tuesday that police in Nghe An have arrested a 23-year-old man accused of smearing the image of Ho Chi Minh and spreading anti-state propaganda on Facebook.

Last week, police in Ho Chi Minh City arrested freelance journalist and government critic Pham Chi Dung, accused of "anti-state" propaganda.

On November 26, Vietnam’s communist regime convicted five political dissidents and sentenced them to a total 20 years in prison and five years of probation in two separate trials which failed to meet international standards for a fair trial.

In the central province of Thanh Hoa, the provincial People’s Court found local Facebooker Pham Van Diep guilty of “Making, storing, spreading information, materials, items for the purpose of opposing the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” under the country’s 2015 Criminal Code. The court sentenced him to nine years in jail and five years of probation for online postings which were considered as “distortion of the communist regime” and “defamation of communist leaders” which led to social dissatisfaction.

Mr. Diep, 54, was arrested on June 29 this year. He has voiced against the communist regime for its socio-political policies and human rights abuse in the last 17 years.

Vietnam’s authorities have barred Catholic priest Nguyen Dinh Thuc from leaving the country to Japan where he would participate in welcoming Pope Francis (Jorge Mario Bergoglio) during the Vatican leader’s visit to Tokyo this week.

Speaking with Defend the Defenders, priest Thuc said security officers in Noi Bai International Airport blocked him from taking a flight from Hanoi to Tokyo at midnight on Wednesday [November 20]. Police officers said the blockage is based on the national security concerns under Decree 136 of the communist government.

Security officers in Noi Bai International Airport’s station also wrote in a working minute that the priest can appeal the police’s decision to the Immigration Department under the Ministry of Public Security.

Priest Thuc is from Song Ngoc parish in Vinh diocese. He has been assisting local Catholic followers in demanding the Taiwanese chemical giant Formosa to pay adequate compensation for the consequences caused by its toxic discharge into Vietnam’s central coastal region in 2016 which had devastating negative impacts on the local fishing industry and tourism.

He is among brave priests criticizing the Vietnamese communist regime’s human rights abuses.

He is among many Catholic priests being barred from going abroad for pastoral missions. Last year, Catholic priest Nguyen Ngoc Nam Phong was also not permitted to leave to Australia where he was invited to take a lengthy course on religion.

Along with imprisoning and harassing local activists, Vietnam’s communist regime has also been blocking hundreds of local activists from going abroad for meeting with their international partners and doing international advocacy in the human rights field.

Authorities in Vietnam arrested a prominent independent journalist Thursday for his criticism of the communist government.

State media reported that Pham Chi Dung was detained by security officers at his home in Ho Chi Minh City and charged with “conducting anti-state propaganda” under Article 117 of Vietnam’s Criminal Code.

According to police, Pham wrote anti-state articles and cooperated with foreign media, to deliver “distorted information.”

The human rights group Defend the Defenders said he contributed to Voice of America and the BBC, under several different pen names.

Pham will be in detention for the next four months as the police investigate, and if convicted could face a sentence of seven to 12 years.

Pham had been arrested once before in 2012 on the same charge but released six months later without being tried. In 2014 he and several other writers founded the Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam (IJAVN), an unregistered entity which “strives to fight for freedom of the press in the Southeast Asian nation,” according to local rights group Defend the Defenders.

Defend the Defenders reported that the journalists association’s website was shut down shortly after the arrest.

Prior to the arrest, he had been frequently harassed by authorities, forbidden to travel overseas in 2014 and under de-facto house arrest since 2013.

Huynh Ngoc Chenh, an IJAVN member, told RFA’s Vietnamese Service Thursday that the arrest showed Hanoi’s desire to exercise greater control over the freedom of speech.

“Pham is the president of IJAVN. He is one of the most active independent journalists. He’s written a lot and is very knowledgeable,” said Huynh.

“His reports are honest and reveal the truth, something the party does not appreciate,” said Huynh, adding, “They want to eliminate his voice.”

According to Defend the Defenders, Hanoi has arrested 29 activists, including 19 bloggers, for writing posts online, and is currently detaining 238 prisoners of conscience.

The country 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.

On November 15, Vietnam’s security forces detained female activist Dinh Thao upon her landing in Noi Bai International Airport after spending the last four years abroad for international advocacy, Defend the Defenders has learned.

Mrs. Thao who has a 16-month baby returned in her home country from Bangkok where she worked for VOICE (Vietnamese Overseas Initiative for Conscience), a U.S.-based rights group working for promoting human rights and multi-party democracy in Vietnam. She was taken by a group of around ten security officers to a police station for interrogation from the morning of Friday until 5 PM on the same day.

Police confiscated her passport, telling her that they may summon her for further interrogation in the future.

According to VOICE’s press release issued when she was held in police custody, in the past four years, Mrs. Thao has been working to promote human rights in Vietnam by engaging in a number of United Nations (UN)’s human rights mechanisms, advocating the EU and other foreign governments via bilateral agreements with Vietnam.

She has worked closely with international and regional NGOs to enhance knowledge of the international community about Vietnam’s human rights situation, the press release said.

Thao graduated from the prestigious Hanoi Medical University in 2015. She was one of the prominent civil activists in Hanoi before going abroad for human rights advocacy. She was a coordinator of the unregistered environmental group Cây Xanh (Green Trees) during its campaign in 2015 which aims to protest Hanoi’s authorities plan to chop down thousands of aged trees in the capital city’s main streets. She was also among key organizers of a campaign supporting independent candidates for the country’s highest legislative body National Assembly in the general election in 2016.

Thao’s detention was condemned by a number of international rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

On November 15, the People’s Court of Nha Trang city, Khanh Hoa province convicted human rights attorney Tran Vu Hai and his wife Ngo Tuyet Phuong and two local citizens of tax evasion under Article 161 of the 1999 Penal Code, Defend the Defenders has learned.

The couple was sentenced to one year of non-custodial reform and was ordered to pay an administrative fine of VND20 million ($850) each for the crime they have not committed, according to the lawyers providing legal assistance for the experienced couple attorneys.

According to the indictment against them, they were accused of committing a tax evasion worth VND276 million in a property deal in 2014. Mr. Hai and his wife reportedly bought a land parcel from Khanh Hoa province-based citizens Nguyen Thi Ngoc Hanh and Ngo Van Lam. The deal value was about VND16 billion but they reported to the local authorities just VND1.8 billion, by that way the sellers paid less tax for the deal. The province’s tax authorities had approved the deal.

As many as more than 60 lawyers had been registered to the court to voluntarily defense for the couple. However, many of them were denied and only around 40 were allowed to attend the trial which was treated as a political one since the local authorities deployed a large number of police officers to block all the roads leading to the court areas and the lawyers were under strict security check-up before entering the courtroom. They were requested to leave all electrical devices, including laptops and cell phones outside. A few reporters of the state-run newspapers were allowed to enter the courtroom to cover the trial.

The defense lawyers said as buyers, Mr. Hai and his wife are not subjects for tax payment for the deal, and they are innocent since the province’s tax authorities approved the deal. Ms. Hanh is a citizen of Belgium so the case should be handled by an upper court and the Nha Trang city’s People’s Court is not eligible for the case. In addition, the property Ms. Hanh sold to Mr. Hai was the only house she owned so she is not required to pay tax for the deal, according to current Vietnam’s law.

The trial lasted three days, longer than other cases with similar characters. On the first day, one of the defense attorneys, Nguyen Duy Binh was rudely expelled out of the courtroom and was taken out by two policemen after questioning Ms. Hanh about her legal representation. Binh was interrogated for hours in a local police station.

Authorities in Khanh Hoa probed the case in early July and placed the four under restricted travel, including travel abroad. In addition, Khanh Hoa police also conducted searching Mr. Hai’s law office and a private residence in Hanoi, in which they allegedly took away a large sum of money and documents from other cases.

It is clear that the allegation and convictions against Mr. Hai and his wife are political as recently the Ministry of Public Security denied Mr. Hai’s request for representing former prisoner of conscience Truong Duy Nhat who is accused of “power abuse” after being kidnapped in Bangkok and taken to Vietnam in late January.

Lawyer Hai is well-known for his participation in sensitive cases to represent victims of injustice, victims of forced land appropriation and political dissidents.

On November 11, the People’s Court of Vietnam’s central province of Nghe An found local pro-democracy college lecturer Nguyen Nang Tinh guilty of “Making, storing, spreading information, materials, items for the purpose of opposing the State of Socialist Republic of Vietnam” under Clause 1, Article 117 of the country’s 2015 Criminal Code.

After a few hours in Friday morning, the court sentenced him to 11 years in jail and five years of probation, the toughest imprisonment given for anti-state propaganda allegation for decades.

Three lawyers Dang Dinh Manh, Trinh Vinh Phuc, and Nguyen Van Mieng went to the courtroom without documentation for Mr. Tinh’s case since they had not been permitted to get access to the documents, including the indictment as Nghe An province’s authorities said the case’s documents are among top national secret. The attorneys were reportedly requested to leave their laptops and cell phones outside of the courtroom.

In his last words in the trial, before the judge announced the court’s decision, Mr. Tinh said he would repeat his actions to protect the country and promote human rights and democracy even he will be punished severely.

Mr. Tinh was arrested by Nghe An province’s security forces on May 29 who later charged him with “conducting anti-state propaganda.” Authorities in Nghe An said Mr. Tinh has used his Facebook account Nguyễn Năng Tĩnh to post and share articles and videos as well as images with content defaming state leaders and distort the ruling communist party’s policies.

According to his family, his indictment was based on the information on the Facebook account Nguyễn Năng Tĩnh, however, he reportedly denied to have this account.

Local activists said Mr. Tinh, who is a lecturer of Nghe An College of Cultural and Art, is very active in promoting human rights and multi-party democracy, and speak out about the country’s issues such as systemic corruption, human rights abuse, widespread environmental pollution, and China’s violations to Vietnam’s sovereignty in the East Sea (South China Sea) and the weak response of the communist government in Hanoi.

There are some videoclips on Youtube in which Mr. Tinh tough students to sing a number of patriotic songs composed by dissidents in which the government is criticized for suppressing anti-China activists.

Vietnam continues its political crackdown on local dissent, arresting more than two dozens human rights defenders, bloggers, and social activists so far this year with different allegations, from “disturbing public orders” to subversion and even terrorism. Hanoi has also convicted 31 activists on trumped-up allegations with a total 153.5 years in prison and 35 years of probation.

The communist regime is holding at least 237 prisoners of conscience as of November 15, according to Defend the Defenders’ statistics. It is a worrying trend that the communist regime has been ging much longer sentences in recent years for the same allegations in the national security provisions of the Criminal Code compared to a decade ago, noted Vu Quoc Ngu, director of Vietnam’s non-profit organization.

A court in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City on Monday convicted three men, one of them an Australian citizen, on charges of engaging in terrorist activities, sentencing them to prison terms of from 10 to 12 years, Vietnamese sources said.

Chau Van Kham, Nguyen Van Vien, and Tran Van Quyen were arrested in January and initially charged with “activities attempting to overthrow the state,” charges that were later changed to involvement in “terrorism that aims to oppose the people’s administration.”

Kham, a resident of Sydney, Australia, and member of the banned U.S.-based Viet Tan opposition party, received the heaviest sentence, attorney Trinh Vinh Phuc—who represented Kham in court—told RFA’s Vietnamese Service following the trial.

“The verdict was very harsh, and the sentence was too heavy,” Phuc said, adding that the defendants’ case could have been tried under terms that would have provided for sentences of less than 10 years on conviction.

“But [the court] still proceeded without paying attention to details that would have allowed for this,” he said.

“The verdict was handed down on the grounds that Viet Tan is a terrorist organization,” though no evidence ever was offered that the defendants’ activities and motivations had shown a terrorist intent, Phuc said.

Criminalizing rights advocacy

In a statement Monday, Viet Tan chairman Hoang Diem slammed the convictions and sentences imposed on the defendants, saying Kham had “traveled to Vietnam [only] to gain first-hand insight into the human rights situation in the country.”

”Nguyen Van Vien and Tran Van Quyen are peaceful activists,” Diem added.

“We challenge the Vietnamese government to provide any evidence linking them to ‘terrorism.’ The Vietnamese authorities are criminalizing human rights advocacy,” Diem said.

Born in 1971 in central Vietnam’s Quang Nam province, Vien had been active in environmental protection work following a massive spill in 2016 of toxic waste by the Taiwan-owned Formosa firm, the Brotherhood for Democracy said in a Jan. 25 statement.

The environmental disaster destroyed livelihoods across Vietnam’s central coast and led to widespread protests and arrests in affected provinces.

Tran Van Quyen, a social activist who also took part in the Formosa protests, was taken into custody ten days later in southeastern Vietnam’s Binh Duong province.

Politically motivated charges

In a statement on Monday, Phil Robertson—deputy Asia director for the international rights group Human Rights Watch—said that by sentencing the 70-year-old Kham to 12 years in prison, Vietnam has essentially condemned him to death.

“Given the harsh and unforgiving conditions in Vietnam’s prisons, he will face huge challenges to survive his entire sentence,” Robertson said, adding that Vietnam has now jailed Kham on “bogus, politically motivated charges that demonstrate just how fearful Vietnam is about people exercising their rights and demanding genuine democracy.”

“He should be released immediately and unconditionally, and allowed to return to his family in Australia,” Robertson said.

According to Human Rights Watch, Vietnam’s one-party communist government currently holds an estimated 138 political prisoners, including rights advocates and bloggers deemed threats to national security.

It also controls all media, censors the internet, and restricts basic freedoms of expression.

In two separate appeal hearings on November 6-7, the Higher People’s Court in Ho Chi Minh City upheld the jail sentences for Vietnamese American Michael Minh Phuong Nguyen and two local political activists named Nguyen Ngoc Anh and Huynh Duc Thinh, sending them back to prison, Defend the Defenders has learned.

On the appeal hearing on November 6, the court rejected the appeals of Mr. Michael Minh Phuong Nguyen who was sentenced to 12 years in jail on the allegation of subversion and Mr. Huynh Duc Thinh, who was given one year in prison on the allegation of misprision by the People’s Court of HCM City on June 24 this year. Meanwhile, on November 7, the same court denied the appeal of Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Anh who was sentenced to six years in prison and five years of probation by the People’s Court of Ben Tre province in the first-instance hearing on June 6.

In both appeal hearings, the judges reportedly said the final decisions were based on lack of new evidence proving the defendants’ defense. Both hearings lasted just a few hours in the mornings of Tuesday and Wednesday, observers said.

Mr. Michael Minh Phuong Nguyen visited his home country in late June and went to the central regions together with young activists Huynh Duc Thanh Binh and Tran Long Phi who participated in the mass demonstrations in HCM City on June 6, 2018 in which tens of thousands of residents rallied on streets to protest two bills on Special Economic Zones and Cyber Security. The trio was arrested and charged with subversion upon their return to HCM City on July 7 while Mr. Huynh Duc Thinh, a former political prisoner, and father of Mr. Huynh Duc Thanh Binh, was detained one day later.

Huynh Duc Thanh Binh and Tran Long Phi, who were given ten and eight years in jail by the trial on June 24, respectively, did not appeal for their sentences.

Observers said in the appeal hearing on November 6, relatives of Mr. Michael Minh Phuong Nguyen and Mr. Huynh Duc Thinh were not permitted to enter the courtroom. There were a number of the diplomats from the US’s Embassy in Hanoi and General Consulate in HCM City attended the hearing.

Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Anh, 39, is a shrimp grower in Binh Dai district, Ben Tre province. He was arrested on August 30 last year. He was accused of posting numerous articles and live streams on his Facebook account Nguyễn Ngọc Ánh in which he speaks out about human rights violations, systemic environmental pollution, bad economic management of Vietnam’s communist government, China’s violations of the country’s sovereignty in the East Sea (South China Sea) and Vietnam’s weak response.

In late September, he was beaten by a criminal inmate who was likely acting on behalf of the authorities of Ben Tre province. Due to the assault, Mr. Anh suffered serious injuries in his right leg, left arm and head, and he feels difficulty in moving. Later, he was placed in an isolated cell where he has no support from other prisoners but serves himself.

Two days prior to his appeal, Human Rights Watch issued a press release calling on Vietnam’s communist regime to immediately and unconditionally release him because he has conducted no crime but exercised his right of freedom of expression on Facebook.

Facing increasing social dissatisfaction, Vietnam’s communist regime has intensified its crackdown on human rights defenders, political dissidents, social activists, and Facebookers in order to keep their political monopoly. So far this year, the regime has arrested at least 28 activists and sentenced 27 to a total 115.5 years in prison and 20 years of probation.

The regime has a plan to try seven others in the coming days and its victims are human rights lawyer Tran Vu Hai and his wife on allegation of tax evasion, pro-democracy activist Nguyen Nang Tinh on accusation of “conducting anti-state propaganda” and four individuals named Vo Thuong Trung, Doan Viet Hoan, Nguyen Dinh Khue and Ngo Xuan Thanh who were charged with “conducting anti-state propaganda” for their plan to participate in peaceful demonstration in late April this year when the country marked the fall of the US-backed Saigon regime.

On November 5, authorities in the northern province of Hoa Binh arrested local resident named Nguyen Van Nghiem on allegation of “conducting anti-state propaganda” for his online postings and live streams on Facebook which were considered harmful for the regime.

Vietnam is holding at least 237 prisoners of conscience in critical conditions, according to Defend the Defenders’ statistics. Hanoi always denies holding prisoners of conscience, saying it imprisons only law violators.

On November 7, the Higher People’s Court in Ho Chi Minh City rejected the appeal of human rights defender and environmentalist Nguyen Ngoc Anh, sending him back to prison in the hearing failed to meet the international standards for a fair trial.

Mr. Anh, 39, will have to serve his 6-year imprisonment on the allegation of “Making, storing, disseminating, or propagandizing information, materials, and products that aim to oppose the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” under Article 117 of the country’s Criminal Code for his online posting on his Facebook account. In addition, his imprisonment is followed by five years of probation.

In the hearing which lasted a few hours on the morning of Thursday, his wife, relatives, and friends were not permitted to enter the courtroom to observe it but watched its development via a TV screen in another room, typical for political cases.

Observers said the judge undermined the defense statement of Mr. Anh’s lawyer and from himself. The judge even questioned him why he attended anti-Formosa demonstrations in May 2016 since the Formosa’s spill did not directly affect Ben Tre province where Anh has a shrimp farm. In response, Anh said he wants to speak out to protect the environment everywhere on the earth. He claims that he is innocent.

Mr. Anh was arrested on August 30, 2018 by the authorities in the Mekong Delta province of Ben Tre due to his postings and live streams on Facebook which are about prototypical issues of concern to social activists in Vietnam, including the environmental destruction wrought by the Formosa’s toxic waste spill in April 2016, the lack of free choice in elections in 2016, and the welfare of political prisoners. However, Vietnam’s communist regime sees them as harmful and defamation of the regime.

Since being arrested, he has been a subject of inhumane treatment by Ben Tre province’s authorities. He was brutally beaten by an inmate in September who mostly acted under the instruction of the local police as they want him not to appeal the sentence given by the province’s court on June 6.

Authorities in Ben Tre have also persecuted his wife who has to take care of their six-year-old child. They have been placing her under close surveillance and several times summoned her to a police station for questioning.

Two days prior to his appeal, Human Rights Watch issued a press release calling on Vietnam’s communist regime to drop the charge against him and free him immediately and unconditionally. By convicting him, Vietnam clearly violates his right to freedom of speech, said the New York-based rights group.

Mr. Anh is among 237 prisoners of conscience being held by the regime in severe living conditions.

Authorities in Vietnam’s central province of Nghe An have decided to re-schedule the first-instance hearing on November 15 to try local pro-democracy activist Nguyen Nang Tinh on allegation of “Making, storing, spreading information, materials, items for the purpose of opposing the State of Socialist Republic of Vietnam” under Clause 1, Article 117 of the country’s 2015 Criminal Code.

The trial will be carried out by the People’s Court of Nghe An province in its headquarters in Vinh city, according to the court’s notice sent to Mr. Tinh’s lawyer Dang Dinh Manh.

The trial, set on October 17 for the first time, was postponed due to the absence of some witnesses, said the court’s announcement on the scheduled day.

It is unclear whether lawyer Manh and other his colleagues have been permitted to have access to the case’s documentation to prepare for his defense. In mid-October, a few days before the scheduled trial, Mr. Tinh’s lawyers asked the court to postpone the trial as they complained that they had a very short time for his defense preparation. One week before the scheduled trial, his lawyers were allowed to meet with him in police custody and got access to his case’s documents, however, they had not permitted to make copies of the indictment and other documents, making their preparation impossible for the serious charge against him.

Mr. Tinh was arrested by Nghe An province’s security forces on May 29 who later charged him with “conducting anti-state propaganda.” Authorities in Nghe An said Mr. Tinh has used his Facebook account Nguyễn Năng Tĩnh to post and share articles and videos as well as images with content defaming state leaders and distort the ruling communist party’s policies.

According to his family, his indictment was based on the information on the Facebook account Nguyễn Năng Tĩnh, however, he reportedly denied to have this account.

Local activists said Mr. Tinh, who is a college lecturer, is very active in promoting human rights and multi-party democracy, and speak out about the country’s issues such as systemic corruption, human rights abuse, widespread environmental pollution and China’s violations to Vietnam’s sovereignty in the East Sea (South China Sea) and the weak response of the communist government in Hanoi.

There are some videoclips on Youtube in which Mr. Tinh tough students to sing a number of patriotic songs composed by dissidents in which the government is criticized for suppressing anti-China activists.

Vietnam continues its political crackdown on local dissent, arresting more than two dozens of human rights defenders, bloggers, and social activists so far this year with different allegations, from “disturbing public orders” to subversion. Hanoi has also convicted 27 activists on trumped-up allegations with a total 115.5 years in prison and 20 years of probation.

The communist regime is holding at least 237 prisoners of conscience as of November 6, according to Defend the Defenders’ statistics.

Authorities in Vietnam’s northern province of Hoa Binh have arrested Mr. Nguyen Van Nghiem on allegation of “Making, storing, disseminating, or propagandizing information, materials, and products that aim to oppose the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” under Article 117 of the country’s Criminal Code for his online posting on his Facebook account Nghiêm Nguyễn.

On November 5, officers from the Security Investigation Agency under Hoa Binh province’s Police Department carried out his detention and the search of his private residence in Hoa Binh city. They confiscated a number of his items, including two computers, two printers, cameras, and cell phones.

He will be held for 120 days for investigation and face imprisonment of between seven and 12 years if is convicted, according to current Vietnam’s law.

Mr. Nghiem, 56, has posted numerous statuses and conducted many live streams on his Facebook account on which he spoke out about the country’s issues such as systemic corruption, widespread environmental pollution, serious human rights abuse, and China’s violations of the country’s sovereignty in the East Sea (South China Sea). He has also criticized the communist regime and its leaders for failure to deal with these problems.

His live streams programs on Facebook have thousands of viewers thanks to his outspoken activities.

Mr. Nghiem has been the 18th Facebooker being arrested so far this year amid Vietnam’s increasing crackdown on local dissent which started in late 2015 with the arrests of prominent human rights lawyer Nguyen Van Dai and his assistant Ms. Le Thu Ha.

Since the beginning of 2019, Vietnam’s communist regime has arrested at least 28 human rights defenders, political dissidents, social activists, and Facebookers, mostly with allegations in the national security provisions in the Criminal Code. It has also sentenced 27 activists with a total of 115.5 years in jail and 20 years of probation.

Vietnam is holding at least 237 prisoners of conscience, including 28 in pre-trial detention which lasts up to 14 months.

Trials of many activists are scheduled in the coming two weeks.

On October 30, the People’s Court of Ninh Kieu district in the Mekong Delta’s hub Can Tho City convicted university lecturer Pham Xuan Hao of “abusing democratic freedom” under Article 331 of the country’s Criminal Code, state media has reported.

Accordingly, the court sentenced Mr. Hao to one year in prison for his postings on his Facebook page. He was said to post and share many articles which distorted the communist regime’s policies and defamed the country’s leadership. It is unclear when he was arrested.

Mr. Hao, 54, is a lecturer of Can Tho University. He graduated architecture and obtained a master’s degree.

He is among a number of Facebookers in Ninh Kieu district being convicted of “abusing democratic freedom” in recent years. In June this year, Quach Nguyen Anh Khoa was sentenced to six months in prison and in September last year, Doan Khanh Vinh Quang was given 27 months in jail for the same allegation. Vietnam’s communist regime is using controversial allegations “abusing democratic freedom” and “conducting anti-state propaganda” under Article 117 of the country’s Criminal Code to silence online dissent. As many as nine activists are being imprisoned between six months and seven years for the first charge and 37 activists are held for the second charge, 30 of them were sentenced to between two and 14 years in jail. Currently, Vietnam is holding 236 prisoners of conscience, according to the latest statistics of Defend the Defenders.