Fb activist Nguyen Duc Hung’s household say he was denied guests they usually solely discovered about his five-and-a-half-year sentence from state media the day after it was handed down.
Hung’s posts aimed to lift consciousness of an environmental catastrophe in his hometown of Ky Anh. The Hung Nghiep Formosa Ha Tinh metal manufacturing facility discharged chemical waste into the ocean and environmentalists say the results are nonetheless being felt by the residents.
His social media posts didn’t focus solely on the catastrophe in his dwelling city. He advised his 9,000-plus followers about circumstances of social injustice and human rights abuses. He additionally targeted on spiritual freedom, posting feedback in regards to the case of Thien An Monastery by which the provincial authorities of Thua Thien Hue “borrowed” land from the spiritual facility.
Hung was convicted of “conducting anti-state propaganda” below Article 117 of the prison code.
The indictment stated Hung’s actions straight affected the implementation of the Get together’s pointers and insurance policies, the State’s legal guidelines, and the power of the folks’s authorities, divided nationwide unity, decreased the folks’s belief within the Get together and State, and doubtlessly triggered nationwide insecurity and dysfunction.
Whereas the court docket claimed it was a public prison trial Hung’s household stated they heard nothing from the police or the court docket.
“After they carried out the trial, my household didn’t know,” Hung’s father Nguyen Van Sen advised RFA.
“I phoned the detention heart and was advised that the trial had been carried out the day earlier than. After I requested why they did not notify my household, the police stated the household was not concerned.”
Sen obtained the identical response when the referred to as the provincial police’s investigative division.
In keeping with a lawyer who has defended many related trials Hung’s case shouldn’t be unusual. Ha Huy Son stated the court docket doesn’t need to notify the household or invite them to the trial. He stated Felony Process Code 2015 solely stipulates telling the household the individual is in custody, or has been arrested within the case of an pressing arrest. It’s only essential to inform the protection lawyer, the sufferer and every other events concerned no less than 10 days earlier than the trial.
Hung is the sixth Facebooker this yr to be convicted of “conducting propaganda in opposition to the state.” The others obtained sentences of between 5 and eight years.
Hung, 31, was arrested on Jan. 6 this yr and has been held incommunicado since then. His father stated, regardless of repeated journeys to the detention heart, the household was not allowed to see him.
The household didn’t rent a protection lawyer and Sen stated he didn’t know if one was current on the trial. Sen didn’t wish to touch upon the sentence, aside from saying he hoped it will be decreased as a result of Hung’s spouse had left him to lift their two main college youngsters.
State media didn’t point out whether or not Hung had a lawyer, solely saying he had pleaded responsible and requested for leniency.
RFA referred to as the Folks’s Courtroom of Ha Tinh province however no-one replied
Communist Get together paranoia
“Given the worsening state of affairs for activists and human rights defenders in Vietnam, it was sadly only a matter of time earlier than Nguyen Duc Hung obtained arrested,” stated Human Rights Watch Deputy Asia Director Phil Robertson.
“It is develop into apparent that the Vietnam Communist Get together is so paranoid about dissenting views that it considers mere writing of phrases on-line to be a risk to state safety. By giving out a five-and-a-half-year jail sentence for simply writing criticism of the federal government on Fb, the federal government has dedicated an outrageous and unacceptable violation of Nguyen Duc Thung’s rights. In actuality, he did nothing that will have been thought of mistaken, and even out of the bizarre, if he was in a democratic society, however after all he’s caught dwelling below a single get together dictatorship.”
Roberts stated Vietnam’s crackdown on freedom of expression means no peaceable activist can unfold his views through social media with out dealing with what he referred to as “bogus state safety costs” and a few years in jail.
“Fairly clearly, Vietnam has develop into one of many worst rights abusing and dictatorial governments in Southeast Asia and now it needs to manage the Web as strictly as China. Any authorities donor or worldwide enterprise investor ought to assume twice about investing in a rustic like Vietnam the place freedom of expression and entry to data is so strictly managed,” Robertson stated.
