Due to Facebook statements that the court determined damaged the state by disparaging a senior judge, a Vietnamese court sentenced a well-known former attorney to three years in prison on Friday.
The most recent well-known attorney to be singled out by authorities for their online writings is Tran Dinh Trien, the former deputy head of the Hanoi Bar Association.
Rights activists claim that in recent years, the government of communist, one-party Vietnam has intensified its crackdown on civil society and used the law as a weapon to stifle dissenting opinions.
The 65-year-old Trien was found guilty by the Hanoi court of “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon state interests” and given a three-year prison sentence.
According to the court, he posted “unauthenticated content” on his personal Facebook page that “affected the reputation of the courts and the chief judge of the supreme court personally.”
In June, Trien, the leader of the Hanoi-based Vi Dan “For the People” law company, was taken into custody. Last week, his legal license was suspended.
From 2013 to 2018, Trien served as the deputy chair of the Hanoi Bar Association. During that time, he represented clients on delicate matters like land seizure and defended activists.
He was charged for three Facebook posts that were posted in April and May of last year.
Human Rights Watch claims that in them, he attacked the top justice of the Supreme Court for allegedly preventing lawyers and journalists from filming open hearings and preventing the relatives of defendants from attending trials.
