(Hanoi) In Vietnam, a famous environmental YouTuber has been sentenced to five years in prison for anti-state activity, his lawyer announced Thursday.
Nguyen Chu Tuyen, known by the pseudonym Anh Chi, was found guilty of “fabricating, storing and disseminating information and documents hostile to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” Mr.e Nguyen Ha Luan to AFP.
Anh Chi was outspoken on sensitive social issues in Vietnam, including environmental pollution, land disputes and global conflicts such as the war between Russia and Ukraine.
His YouTube channel hosts 1,600 videos and has almost 100,000 subscribers.
Vietnam’s ruling single-party communist party has stepped up its crackdown on dissent in recent years, analysts say.
Ahead of the trial, rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on Hanoi to release the YouTuber.
“Vietnamese authorities targeted Nguyen Chi Tuyen because he expressed views they do not like,” said Patricia Gossman, associate Asia director at HRW.
“The government must stop imprisoning peaceful critical voices, repeal its draconian criminal laws and end the systematic violation of fundamental rights,” she added.
On social media, Anh Chi said he was the victim of police harassment, physical attacks, house arrest and a ban on leaving the country.
“We have only acted in accordance with our conscience, expressing our thoughts, desires and aspirations,” he wrote on Facebook in April 2023.
Tuyen was arrested in late February, the same day as Nguyen Vu Binh, a political activist who spent nearly five years in prison in the early 2000s.
According to HRW, since 2016, Vietnamese police have arrested at least 269 people for peacefully exercising their basic civil and political rights.