Vietnam Court Rejects Appeal of ‘Constitution Group’ Protesters, Returning Them
to Prison
RFA | 2021-01-08
An appeals court in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City on Friday upheld harsh prison
terms handed down last year to four activists convicted of planning protests on
Vietnam’s National Day on Sept. 2, 2018.
Arrested in September 2018, the four were part of a group of eight named by
police as members of the Hien Phap (Constitution) Group, a network of activists
formed on June 16, 2017 to call for the rights to freedom of speech and assembly
promised under Article 25 of Vietnam’s Constitution.
All eight were convicted of “disturbing security” under Article 118 of Vietnam’s
2015 Penal Code, and were sentenced on July 31, 2020 to prison terms ranging
from two years and six months to eight years in a trial from which family
members were barred.
In a one-day hearing on Friday, judges upheld the sentences given by the lower
court to Nguyen Thi Ngoc Hanh, sentenced to eight years in prison; Ngo Van Dung
and Le Quy Loc, sentenced to five years in prison each; and Ho Dinh Cuong,
sentenced to four years and six months.
All four were then returned to prison to serve their full terms, including two
to three years on probation following their release.
“The four members of the Constitution Group again declared their innocence in
court today, saying they had only engaged in protests according to their
rights,” defense attorney Nguyen Van Mieng told RFA by phone following the
trial.
They said their group had called for protests only to oppose a new law granting
concessions of land in Vietnam to Chinese businesses, “and not to disrupt social
order and security or act against the interests of the state,” Mieng said.
The court rejected the group’s arguments, though, saying that their goal had
been to disturb social order and security, leaving them open to conviction under
Article 118 of Vietnam’s Penal Code.
Family members watch via TV
Huynh Thi Kim Nga, the wife of defendant Ngo Van Dung, told RFA on Friday that
she and other family members had been allowed to watch the day’s court
proceedings via television monitor in a separate room.
“Things were made easier for us than they had been at the last trial, and we
later learned that the reason for this was that the U.S. Consul General in Ho
Chi Minh City was present in the court,” she said.
“My husband said in court this morning that whether he was finally sentenced to
five, 10, or even 100 years in prison, he still affirmed his innocence of the
charge of causing harm to the country, and that everything he did was permitted
under Article 25 of Vietnam’s Constitution,” she said.
The Hien Phap Group had previously played a major role in calling for widespread
protests that rocked Vietnamese cities in June 2018 in opposition to a proposed
cybersecurity law and the law granting concessions of land to Chinese
businesses, and many of its members are now serving long terms in prison.
Vietnam’s already low tolerance of dissent deteriorated sharply last year with a
spate of arrests of independent journalists, publishers, and Facebook
personalities as authorities continued to stifle critics in the run-up to the
ruling Communist Party congress in January.
According to the rights group Defend the Defenders, Hanoi is currently detaining
at least 238 prisoners of conscience.
Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Huy Le. Written in English
by Richard Finney.
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