Vietnam has jailed an out-spoken Catholic blogger, known for commenting on social issues, for allegedly trying to undermine the state.
The People’s Court in Lam Dong province on July 7 senten-ced Nguyen Quoc Duc Vuong, 29, to eight years in jail and three years’ probation for “mak-ing, hoarding and disseminating anti-state propaganda.”
The blogger from Don Duong district was arrested in September last year.
According to a four-page indictment, Vuong had posted and spread 98 video clips and 366 articles against the govern-ment on Facebook.
He was also accused of taking part in illegal protests in Ho Chi Minh City in 2018 against the approval of the country’s contro-versial cyber security law and proposed special economic deve-lopment plans. The indict-ment said his posts criticized the country’s socialist system and Ho Chi Minh, the father of commu-nism in Vietnam. It said Vuong was heavily influenced by his anti-communist father, who was a soldier in the South Vietnamese army during the Vietnam War.
