A Vietnamese court jailed five citizen journalists for “abuse of democratic rights,” sparking sharp criticism from the United States over the Communist government’s crackdown on free speech.
Five people working on an online news page of citizen journalists were sentenced Thursday by a court in Can Tho, in the southern Mekong Delta region.
Truong Chau Huu Danh, founder of the Bao Sach (“The Clean Newspaper”) Facebook page, which publishes articles on hot social issues and corruption, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison.
The articles by Mr. Danh, a former journalist, contained “reactionary thoughts, getting to the bottom of things and not serving the interests of the country,” the Vietnamese news agency said, citing court documents.
His four co-defendants were sentenced to prison terms ranging from two to three years.
All five will be banned from working in journalism for three years after serving their prison sentence.
The verdict is the latest in a “disturbing trend” towards the detention of press workers and any citizen “exercising their rights to freedom of expression and of the press,” the spokesperson for the Press said on Friday. US State Department, Ned Price.
“This group of journalists focuses on investigative reporting on corruption, which of course is not a crime,” he said in a statement. “The United States calls on the Vietnamese authorities (…) to release these five journalists and all those unjustly detained, and to allow all individuals in Vietnam to express their opinions freely and without fear of reprisals.”
The Vietnamese administration’s hard line often acts quickly to quell dissent, jailing activists, journalists and any critics with large audiences on Facebook, which is widely used in the country.
In July, former radio journalist Pham Chi Thanh, also a well-known pro-democracy activist, was sentenced to five and a half years in prison for posting information on Facebook.
Critics say the government has taken a much harsher approach to dissent since Nguyen Phu Trong was re-elected as Communist Party leader after a secret congress held earlier this year. .
Vietnam occupies 175th place out of 180 countries in the world press freedom ranking established by Reporters Without Borders in 2021.