Three men sentenced to jail for anti-State propaganda
Imprisonment sentences given to three men for anti-State propaganda
The People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City on January 5 sentenced Pham Chi Dung to 15 years in prison for making, storing, and spreading information, documents, and items for the purpose of opposing the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
HCM City (VNA) - The People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City on January 5 sentenced Pham ChiDung to 15 years in prison for making, storing, and spreadinginformation, documents, and items for the purpose of opposing the State of theSocialist Republic of Vietnam.
Afterserving his sentence, he will be placed under home probation for three yearsand must return all illegal earnings from writing stories for and being interviewedby foreign media outlets in an attempt to change Vietnam’s political institutions.
Dung’s twoaccomplices - Nguyen Tuong Thuy and Le Huu Minh Tuan - were sentenced to 11years in jail each on the same charges.
Authorisedagencies concluded that the contents of 25 stories from Dung, five from Thuy,and six from Tuan distorted and defamed the people’s administration andfabricated information to harm the prestige of the Communist Party of Vietnam andundermine the Vietnamese State.
Dung was identifiedas the mastermind. According to the indictment from the HCM City People’sProcuracy, he founded a so-called “Hoi nha bao doc lap Viet Nam” (Vietnameseindependent journalists’ association) and established the “Vietnam Thoi Bao”(Vietnam Times) website and blog to publish propaganda and distortedinformation on the policies of the Party and laws of the State.
The boardof judges said the acts of the defendants are extremely serious and dangerousto society as they abetted malcontents and political opportunists in erodingthe people’s trust in the Party and State and caused public concern. They weredeemed to have deliberately committed the crimes.
Dung wasarrested by HCM City's police on October 21, 2019, while Thuy was detained onMay 23, 2020 and Tuan on June 12, 2020./.
The Investigation Security Agency under the Ho Chi Minh Department of Public Security has decided to detain and launch criminal proceedings against Nguyen Tuong Thuy for making, storing, disseminating or popularizing anti-state information and documents.
Ho Chi Minh City police said on June 13 that they had detained Le Huu Minh Tuan, a resident in central Quang Nam province, for making, storing, spreading information, materials, items for the purpose of opposing the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam under Article 17 of the Penal Code.
The People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City held a court for Pham Chi Dung and his two accomplices – Nguyen Tuong Thuy and Le Huu Minh Tuan – for the charge of making, storing, spreading information, materials, items for the purpose of opposing the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam under the Penal Code.
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The defendants at the court (Photo: VNA) 
