When Duong Van Thai was in Thailand, they fed him information he used to criticize policy and expose corruption, 88 Project says.
Duong Van Thai in a video talk that was re-posted by his friends on YouTube after he was arrested.
Duong Van Thai in a video talk that was re-posted by his friends on YouTube after he was arrested. (Free Thai Van Duong via YouTube)
Read a version of this story in Vietnamese
Vietnam has jailed five party members for feeding information to Duong Van Thai, a blogger who is believed to have been abducted in Thailand last year and resurfaced in Vietnamese custody, the human rights group 88 Project reported, citing sources inside the government.
The report sheds new light on the case of Thai, who fled Vietnam in 2019 fearing political persecution for his many YouTube and Facebook posts criticizing the government of corruption and over its policies.
Thai disappeared in April 2023 in what his supporters and rights advocates say was an abduction. Shortly thereafter, he turned up in Vietnamese custody.
It turns out that after Thai’s arrest in April 2023, Vietnamese police arrested seven people for giving Thai information for his critical social media posts, the 88 Project report said.
In October, at the same closed-door trial where Thai was convicted and sentenced to 12 years for disseminating information harmful to the state, five party members and two others were also convicted and given sentences ranging from 30 months to 5.5 years for giving him information, the report said.
RFA Vietnamese confirmed the sentences with a source inside the government.
The convicted party members were:
Truong Cong Dai, the former director of the Sub-Department of Environmental Protection under the Bac Giang provincial Department of Natural Resources and Environment
Vu Anh Tuan, the head of the Organizational and Inspection Division of the Bac Giang Youth Union
Nguyen Van Van, the former chairman of the Board of Directors at the Gia Nguyen Group Joint Stock Company
Bui Thi Khanh Phuong and Nguyen Thanh Tung, two Party members whose specific titles were not disclosed.
The other two convicted people were Tran Quoc Khanh, the former director general of the G7 International Investment Consulting Joint Stock Company and Nguyen Thiet Hung, a freelance engineer.
Hanoi has not confirmed that Thai was abducted, but Vietnam has in the past abducted its own citizens from Thailand and elsewhere.
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The information these people provided to Thai was embarrassing for the government, because it reveals a lack of ideological conformity among officials, said Ben Swanton, The 88 Project’s co-director in an email with RFA.
“It seems that the government decided to hold a closed trial to prevent information about the case from getting out,” he said. “This case reveals that Hanoi is not only willing to criminally prosecute bloggers and journalists for exercising their right to free speech, but also the sources who provide them with information.”
RFA contacted the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the 88 Project’s report, but did not receive a response.
Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.