Radio Free Asia | Imprisoned in Vietnam | January 11, 2017

Job:Internet Reporter, Camera Operator
Medium:Internet, Radio
Beats Covered:Human Rights, Politics
Gender:Male
Local or Foreign:Local
Freelance:No
Charge:Anti-state
Length of Sentence:Not Sentenced
Reported Health Problems:No

Hoa, a videographer with U.S. government-funded Radio Free Asia's Vietnamese language service, was arrested on January 11, 2017, at his home in the central coastal province of Ha Tinh, according to news reports.

On January 23, police informed Hoa's family that he was being detained under Article 258 of the penal code, which carries a maximum sentence of seven years in prison for "abusing democratic freedoms," according to Rohit Mahajan, a Radio Free Asia spokesman.

Mahajan told CPJ that police had previously beaten Hoa and confiscated his reporting equipment, including a mobile phone and camera, while he was on assignment in November 2016.

Hoa also published videos online of protests around an industrial accident in 2016 that killed tons of fish and devastated fishing communities in Vietnam's central coastal region in his personal capacity as a citizen journalist, Mahajan told CPJ.

In April 2017, Colonel Nguyen Tien Nam, deputy director of the Hà Tĩnh police, publicly announced the charges against Hoa, according to a report from the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees Radio Free Asia. Vietnamese authorities released a short video of Hoa confessing his guilt and requesting forgiveness, the report said. Police said Hoa had a contract with an unnamed foreign media outlet to produce 16 videos per month.

On November 27, in a one-day trial, a court in the central coastal province of Ha Tinh sentenced Hoa to seven years in prison and three years of house arrest under article 88 of the penal code, an anti-state provision that carries a maximum 20-year prison term for "propagandizing" against the state, according to news reports.

Prosecutors said the blogger's reporting, including material on an industrial toxic spill that devastated wide areas of Vietnam's central coast in mid-2016, was aimed at "propagating against, distorting, and defaming the government." The Associated Press reported that the spill was among Vietnam's worst environmental disasters.

Hoa was being detained incommunicado in Ky Khang Commune in Ha Tinh province's Ky Anh District, the Radio Free Asia spokesman said.

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