By The Diplomat | Created at 2024-10-31 07:16:29 | Updated at 2024-10-31 21:31:23
21 hours ago
A Vietnamese court yesterday sentenced the blogger Duong Van Thai to 12 years in prison on charges of publishing anti-state propaganda following a trial in Hanoi.
According to a Radio Free Asia (RFA) report, which quoted a person with knowledge of the case, Thai’s verdict was read out during a closed-door trial at the Hanoi People’s Court. Thai was represented in court by two lawyers, Le Dinh Viet and Le Van Luan.
Thai, 42, was charged for social media posts and YouTube videos that criticized the Vietnamese government and leaders of the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam.
Like many dissident journalists and social media influencers, he was convicted under Article 117 of Vietnam’s penal code, which outlaws “making, storing, disseminating, or propagating information, documents, and items aimed at opposing the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.”
Thai appeared in Vietnamese custody in April 2023 after disappearing from Thailand, where he had fled and been granted refugee status by the United Nations. State media reported that Thai was detained for “illegally entering” the country through an unofficial border crossing from Laos. Vietnamese state media reports have accused Thai of association with outlawed groups including the Brotherhood for Democracy and the Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam, many of whose former members are also in prison.
However, human rights groups accused Vietnamese intelligence agents of abducting him in Thailand, arguing that Thai never would have returned voluntarily to Vietnam, given the charges against him.
Thai fled to Thailand in 2018, fearing political persecution for his criticisms of the authorities on social media platforms. He had been granted refugee status by the United Nations, pending the processing of his asylum claim.
Phil Robertson, the director of the advocacy group Asia Human Rights and Labour Advocates, said in a statement that there was ample evidence that the Vietnamese government had “abducted Duong Van Thai off the streets in Thailand in broad daylight.” He said that this showed the Vietnamese government’s “true face as a rogue authoritarian regime prepared to violate all international norms in order to crack down on its critics abroad.”
The Vietnamese government does have a track record in these sorts of renditions. In December 2017, intelligence agents kidnapped the former Vietnamese state company official Trinh Xuan Thanh from a park in Berlin, where he had also sought asylum. The incident chilled relations between Germany and Vietnam for several years. Similarly, in February 2019, Vietnamese security forces abducted blogger Truong Duy Nhat, who was kidnapped from a shopping mall in Bangkok where, like Thai and Thanh, he was waiting on the application of an asylum claim. Thanh and Nhat were both subsequently sentenced to lengthy periods in prison.
In a statement today, the rights organization Human Rights Watch said that the Vietnamese government should “annul the politically motivated verdict” against Thai. It described his abduction and trial as “just the latest example of the Vietnamese government’s thuggish disregard for international law and the rights of its citizens.”
Thai’s alleged abduction from Thailand coincided with a visit to Hanoi of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who described the U.S.-Vietnam partnership as “one of the most dynamic and one of the most important relationships we’ve had.” Five months later, the two nations announced the establishment of a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, raising the U.S. to the highest tier of Vietnam’s diplomatic hierarchy.
