Vietnam sentences YouTuber to five years in prison for anti-state activities

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Vietnamese authorities on Thursday sentenced an influential YouTuber and activist who spoke out on environmental pollution and land rights to five years in prison on anti-state charges, his lawyer said.

Nguyen Chi Tuyen was found guilty of “creating, storing and disseminating information, documents and materials against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” and sentenced to five years in prison in Hanoi, lawyer Nguyen Ha Luan told AFP.

Tuyen – also known as Anh Chi – was a co-founder of the football club No-U FC, whose members protested against China's territorial claims in the South China Sea, where Vietnam also has claims.

He spoke out openly on sensitive social issues in Vietnam, including environmental pollution and land disputes, as well as global conflicts such as the war between Russia and Ukraine.

One of his YouTube channels, Anh Chi Rau Den, has 1,600 videos uploaded and 98,000 subscribers.

Analysts say authorities in communist Vietnam have stepped up their crackdown on dissidents in recent years.

Before the trial, Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on the Vietnamese authorities to release Tuyen.

“Vietnamese authorities targeted Nguyen Chi Tuyen because he expressed views they did not like,” said Patricia Gossman, HRW’s deputy Asia director.

“The government should stop imprisoning peaceful critics, repeal its draconian penal laws and put an end to the systematic violation of fundamental rights,” she added.

Tuyen said on social media that he had been the victim of police harassment, physical attacks, house arrest and an international travel ban.

“We didn’t fight and we didn’t try to take anything away from anyone,” he wrote on Facebook in April last year.

“We have only acted in accordance with our conscience, expressed our thoughts and expressed our wishes and hopes.”

Tuyen was arrested in late February on the same day as Nguyen Vu Binh, a political activist who spent nearly five years in prison in the early 2000s. A court date for Binh has not yet been announced.

According to HRW, Vietnamese police have arrested at least 269 people since 2016 for peacefully exercising their basic civil and political rights.

In April last year, Nguyen Lan Thang, a friend of Tuyen who was also a member of No-U FC's team, was sentenced to six years in prison on a similar charge.

Thang was a well-known freelance journalist who documented protests and human rights violations.

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