Updated Sept. 10, 2024, 2:53 p.m. ET.
A court in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi on Tuesday jailed journalist Nguyen Vu Binh for seven years for “propaganda against the state,” a charge that carries a maximum 12-year sentence, his sister, Nguyen Thi Phong, told Radio Free Asia.
Phong was allowed into the courtroom to observe the trial, along with Binh’s daughter. He was represented by three lawyers, Le Dinh Viet, Le Van Luan, and Nguyen Thi Trang.
Binh, 56, was arrested in February and charged under Article 117 of the criminal code, which international rights groups say is vaguely worded in order to provide a catch-all clause to suppress freedom of speech.
Binh is a freelance journalist who contributed to RFA Vietnamese from 2015 until his arrest. He wrote about corruption, land rights, police brutality, unfair trials, the right to peaceful protest, the economy, education, the environment, and Vietnam’s relationships with China and the United States.
He was prosecuted for “making, storing, disseminating or propagating information, documents and items with fabricated content, causing confusion among the people” for his comments in videos posted on YouTube in January and March 2022.
Authorities said the clips contained content “propagating psychological warfare arguments, spreading fabricated news and causing confusion among the people.”
According to Binh’s lawyers, the indictment against him said he told investigators the videos contained political, economic, and social news collected from newspapers, social media and the internet. He said he commented on the clips in order to tell viewers the truth about domestic and international events.
Prosecutors said Binh knew the YouTube channel TNT Media Live was created by a foreigner. The channel is owned by U.S.-based broadcasting outlet Tieng Nuoc Toi, or "My Country's Language."
Binh said, however, he did not remember who created, managed, and contributed to the channel or who posted video clips on it.
While Binh “expressed a cooperative attitude or contrition,” he was guilty of “dangerous recidivism," according to the indictment.
He admitted to the actions described in the indictment but told the court he was practicing his right to freedom of expression. He does not plan to appeal the sentence, according to one of his lawyers, who didn’t want to be identified due to the sensitivity of the case.
On Monday, Human Rights Watch called on the Vietnamese government to drop the charges and release Binh immediately.
“It’s absurd that the Vietnamese government – which monopolizes all media and ensures that they publish only what the government wants to hear – cannot take a word of criticism from a lone independent voice like Nguyen Vu Binh,” the New York-based rights group’s Deputy Asia Director Patricia Gossman said.
“When will Vietnam’s leaders learn to tolerate dissenting voices, and when will countries with close ties to Vietnam speak out about the oppression there?”
RFA, in a joint statement with PEN International, the Vietnamese Abroad PEN Centre and PEN America, called the ruling “another example of Vietnam’s unjust crackdown on free speech and brazen intimidation of journalists and writers.”
Binh was a two-time recipient of the prestigious Hellmann-Hammett writers’ award. which honors writers facing political persecution, the organizations said in their Tuesday statement.
“His case warrants swift attention, and we call upon the international community to join us in condemnation of this ruling,” they said.
Binh's co-host on TNT Media Live Nguyen Van Dai told RFA Vietnamese his colleague's arrest and conviction was part of Communist Party General Secretary To Lam's campaign to suppress dissidents as he takes on the role of absolute leader of the ruling party.
“We only selected domestic news to report and comment on from our personal point of view, which is our human and civil right as stated in Article 25 of the 2013 Vietnamese Constitution,” Dai said on Tuesday from Germany, where he lives in exile.
“This is an unjust and unreasonable verdict, which is a form of suppression of dissidents in Vietnam.”
RELATED STORIES
[ Vietnam cracks down on social media users who criticize the stateOpens in new window ]
[ Vietnamese activist found guilty of anti-state propagandaOpens in new window ]
[ Vietnam jails Facebook user for 7 years for ‘insulting Ho Chi Minh’Opens in new window ]
Binh is the eighth activist to be brought to trial since former public security minister Lam was elected general secretary of the Communist Party, Vietnam’s top job, in early August.
Activists Nguyen Chi Tuyen, Tran Minh Loi, Le Phu Tuan, Phan Dinh Sang, Tran Van Khanh, Phan Ngoc Dung, and Bui Van Khang, all received prison terms for criticizing the government.
During Lam’s tenure as head of the police force, from 2016 to 2024, Vietnam arrested at least 269 people for peacefully exercising their basic civil and political rights, Human Rights Watch said.
Le Anh Hung, who recently completed a prison term for “abusing democratic freedoms” said Binh had been fighting for democracy and human rights since the turn of the century when the movement was still young and the number of campaigners could be counted on the fingers of one hand.
“Nguyen Vu Binh has been a very peaceful activist, he behaves very modestly in social interactions, especially with government agencies. He also advocates changing the country peacefully,” Hung told RFA ahead of Tuesday’s trial.
In 2003, Binh was sentenced to seven years in prison and three years house arrest for “espionage.” He secured early release in 2007 and immediately resumed his human rights campaigning.
In another case involving Article 117, a Hanoi court set Sept. 16 as the date for former broadcaster Phan Van Bach’s trial.
He was arrested last December for posting articles and video clips on social media with content authorities said "distort the Party's policies and guidelines, defame the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, deny the leadership role of the Communist Party of Vietnam, disseminate edited images that defame state leaders and incite the masses."
Bach’s wife, Nguyen Thi Yeu, told RFA she only found out about the trial when his lawyer called her.
Yeu visited her husband in police detention in Hanoi in June. She said she didn’t recognize him because he was emaciated due to stomach problems, weighing only 40 kilograms (88 pounds) compared with 65 kilograms before his arrest.
Bach, 49, took part in demonstrations against China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea in 2011, the Green Trees environment movement in 2015 and the protest against a toxic spill from a Formosa Plastics factory in 2016.
In 2017, he joined YouTube channel CHTV, reporting on Vietnam’s socio-economic issues. After stepping down the following year, he concentrated on business projects.
Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Mike Firn.
This story has been updated to include comments from a joint statement issued by RFA and three other organizations.