The Greater Folks’s Court docket within the Vietnamese capital plans to listen to appeals from three well-known activists: blogger Le Van Dung, also called Le Dung Vova, and land rights activists Trinh Ba Phuong and Nguyen Thi Tam.

Impartial journalist Le Van Dung’s listening to will likely be on August 16. The following day the court docket will rule on Trinh and Nguyen’s sentences.

Dung, 52, was sentenced to 5 years in jail and 5 years’ probation for “conducting anti-state propaganda.”

He was accused of “making and importing on social media 12 clips with propaganda content material in opposition to the State, defaming the federal government, spreading fabricated information, inflicting confusion among the many individuals and insulting the distinction and fame of leaders of the Social gathering and State,” between March 2017 and September 2018.

Dung didn’t deny posting the clips however stated they instructed the reality. He protested his innocence underneath the Vietnamese Structure and worldwide human rights conventions that Vietnam has signed

Dung’s spouse, Bui Thi Hue, instructed RFA she hoped the attraction court docket would launch her husband.

Trinh Ba Phuong, 37, and Nguyen Thi Tam, 50, have been each arrested on June 24, 2020 and charged with “conducting anti-state propaganda.”

Phuong’s mom, Can Thi Theu, and his youthful brother, Trinh Ba Tu, have been arrested on the identical day after complaining on social media a couple of police raid on land rights protesters from Dong Tam commune the place they lived. Three policemen died in clashes with locals and commune chief Le Dinh Kinh, who was main the land petitioners, was killed by the police.

Theu and her son,  Trinh Ba Tu, have been each sentenced to eight years in jail and three years of home arrest.

In December the Hanoi Folks’s Court docket sentenced Phuong to 10 years in jail and 5 years of probation. Tam was sentenced to 6 years in jail and three years of probation.

This isn’t Tam’s first conviction. She was imprisoned twice for preventing in opposition to land expropriation by the Duong Noi commune authorities. In 2008 she was charged with “disturbing public order” and in 2014 she was convicted for “resisting public officers.”

Phuong’s spouse, Do Thi Thu, instructed RFA she was extraordinarily dissatisfied with the unique trial.

“My husband and our household solely spoke the reality concerning the land and the reality concerning the individuals of Dong Tam, but they sentenced my husband to 10 years in jail and my mother-in-law and brother-in-law have been imprisoned for eight years.”

“This judgment is absurd. I’ve no hope for the upcoming attraction listening to. I additionally don’t count on the court docket to scale back my husband’s sentence.”

“I simply hope that this communist dictatorship will quickly collapse so the Vietnamese individuals will undergo much less and have extra freedom after which my husband and different prisoners will likely be freed.”

Through the authentic trial, Phuong accused Hanoi police investigators of torturing him many occasions throughout the interrogation, hitting his genitals, inflicting him nice ache.

Theu and her two sons received awards from the Vietnam Human Rights Community final yr. The U.S.-based group acknowledges activists and organizations in Vietnam “who’ve made their mark within the inexorable march in direction of freedom, human rights and democracy of the Vietnamese individuals.”