Hanoi Denies Hoang Thi Minh Hong ‘Tax Evasion’ Charges are a Crackdown on Environmental Activism

 

The Vietnamese Magazine | November 18, 2024

The Vietnamese diplomatic mission in Geneva has responded to a joint communication of three United Nations special rapporteurs in a reply dated Nov. 1, which rejected allegations that the charges brought against climate leader Hoang Thi Minh Hong were politically motivated. Vietnam claimed that her arrest and trial were “conducted in accordance with the laws of Vietnam.”

The response letter claimed Hanoi has a consistent policy in combating climate change, adding that reports of repression of environmental activists are “unfounded” and “reflect a biased and negative view” of its human rights situation.

Hong was sentenced to three years in prison in a 2023 trial. However, the authorities released her last September, 20 months before her scheduled release from prison, just  before Communist Party General Secretary To Lam visited the United States. Hong, founder and director of a dissolved climate organization named CHANGE, was detained following the arrests of other environmental activists, Nguy Thi Khanh and Dang Dinh Bach, on similar alleged tax-related offenses. The police investigators alleged that CHANGE had evaded a 5.2 billion dong in taxes ($205,000). 

In a joint letter dated July 2023, three UN special rapporteurs working on the situation of human rights defenders, sustainable environment, and the right to freedom of assembly raised their concerns over the arrest and conviction of Hoang Thi Minh Hong on “tax evasion” charges. The rapporteurs claimed that Hong’s prosecution is part of a “wider crackdown on environmental rights defenders and against civic space” in Vietnam.

They requested the Vietnamese government provide further information regarding the legal grounds for her arrest and detention and clarify what steps Hanoi has taken to ensure nonprofit and civil society organizations can operate without fear of harassment, violence and retaliation.

Last July, a court in Hanoi convicted and sentenced Ngo Thi To Nhien, director of Vietnam Initiative for Energy Transition Social Enterprise (VIETSE), an energy think tank, to 42 months in prison on charges of “usurping official documents” of EVN, a state-own electricity company, under Article 342 of the Penal Code. Nhien’s organization says its mission is accelerating Vietnam’s transition towards becoming a carbon-neutral country. According to Project88, Nhien's trial was closed to the public, and state media did not report on her conviction.

 

 

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