Prominent Vietnamese journalist jailed for seven years

Authorities ignore calls for the release of Nguyen Vu Binh charged with conducting propaganda against the state

 

UCA News | Sept 10, 2024

A journalist and critic of the Vietnamese government who covered corruption, land rights and the environment was jailed for seven years by a court in Hanoi on Sept. 10, after authorities ignored pleas by civil society groups for his immediate release.

Nguyen Vu Binh, 56, was charged on Feb. 29, with conducting propaganda against the state under article 117 of the penal code after criticizing the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) in comments described as “fabricated” by the prosecution and posted on YouTube in January and March 2022.

The charge carries a prison term of up to 12 years but his sister, Nguyen Thi Phong, confirmed the verdict and a seven-year term with Radio Free Asia (RFA) where Binh had also worked with the Vietnamese service from 2015 until his arrest.

PEN International President Burhan Sonmez said the use of article 117 was another example of “Vietnam’s unjust targeting and brazen intimidation of independent journalists,” noting Binh has twice received the Hellmann/Hammett writers’ award for victims of political persecution.

“Binh’s work as a blogger is critical. His case warrants swift attention and we call upon the international community to join us in condemning his arrest,” he said in a statement released jointly with RFA.

Bin worked as a journalist with the CPV’s official journal Communist Review for almost a decade before resigning in late 2000 when he attempted to form an independent political party and then an anti-corruption association in 2001 with other dissidents.

In 2002, after providing written testimony to the U.S. Congress about human rights abuses in Vietnam, he was arrested and sentenced to seven years in prison, before being released in 2007 on a presidential amnesty.

He contributed hundreds of entries to an RFA blog and in 2015 he was one of 12 bloggers and human rights activists stopped and beaten by plainclothes police in Hanoi, according to additional information provided by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

“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,” associate Asia director at HRW, Patricia Gossman, said on Sept. 9.

“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?”

HRW noted that Binh’s trial was the eighth since To Lam took office as general secretary of the CPV. He served as head of Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security between April 2016 and May 2024, when Vietnamese police arrested at least 269 people.

In the past six weeks, Vietnamese authorities sentenced at least seven human rights campaigners, including Nguyen Chi Tuyen, Tran Minh Loi, Le Phu Tuan, Phan Dinh Sang, Tran Van Khanh, Phan Ngoc Dung, and Bui Van Khang to prison terms for criticizing the government.

 

 

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