Two Vietnamese cousins have been convicted for spreading anti-state “propaganda,” state media reported, the latest activists to be jailed in the authoritarian communist country.
Nguyen Huu Quoc Duy, 31, and Nguyen Huu Thien An, 21, were convicted of “propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” at a closed one-day trial, state-run Vietnam News Agency (VNA) said late on Tuesday.
Duy was found guilty of sharing “dozens of articles with wrongful viewpoints ... distorting the party and state policy” on his Facebook page, VNA said, citing the verdict from a court in Vietnam’s southern Khanh Hoa Province.
He was also accused of “requesting the elimination of the Communist Party leadership and state management,” it added.
An was convicted of “regularly logging onto reactionary Web pages with information defaming the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” the report said.
According to the court, their behavior “was very serious, violating the strength of the communist state, reverting people’s trust toward the party’s leadership,” VNA reported.
Duy was handed a three-year sentence, while An was given two years in jail.
Their charges fall under the controversial Article 88 of Vietnam’s Criminal Code, which rights groups say is vaguely worded and routinely used to punish dissent.
Earlier in the week, Amnesty International published an open letter demanding Vietnamese authorities release the cousins “immediately and unconditionally.”
Vietnam is regularly criticized for its intolerance of dissent and prosecution of regime critics.
Lawyers, bloggers and activists are routinely subject to arbitrary arrests and detention in the country where private media is banned and all newspapers and television channels are state-run.
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