Huy Duc, a prominent independent journalist and author in Vietnam, has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for Facebook posts deemed critical of the government, Al Jazeera reports.
Following a brief trial, the Hanoi court convicted the 63-year-old of “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the state” for publishing 13 articles on Facebook. The Vietnam News Agency cited the indictment, stating the posts generated significant engagement and “causing negative impacts on social order and safety.”
Huy Duc, whose real name is Truong Huy San, previously worked for state-run newspapers before becoming known for his popular blog and Facebook account, where he critiqued Vietnam’s leaders on issues including corruption, media control, and relations with China. He is also a former senior army lieutenant.
Huy Duc was previously dismissed from a state news outlet in 2009 for criticizing the Soviet Union. In 2012, he spent a year at Harvard University as a Nieman Fellow. His book, The Winning Side, which recounts life in Vietnam after the war with the United States, was published during this time.
His conviction follows the recent jailing of blogger Duong Van Thai, who received a 12-year sentence for publishing anti-state information on his YouTube channel, which had nearly 120,000 followers. In January, a former lawyer was also imprisoned for three years for Facebook posts.
Shortly before his arrest in June, Huy Duc reportedly criticized Vietnam’s new leader To Lam and his predecessor Nguyen Phu Trong online.
Vietnam, a one-party state, maintains strict control over the media and suppresses dissent. The country is considered one of the world’s leading jailers of journalists, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF). RSF has previously described Huy Duc’s articles as “an invaluable source of information enabling the Vietnamese public to access censored information.”
Human rights advocates contend that the Vietnamese government has intensified its crackdown on civil society in recent years. In December, Vietnam implemented new online regulations requiring Facebook and TikTok to verify user identities and share user data with authorities. The regulations, known as “Decree 147,” mandate that tech companies operating in Vietnam verify user accounts using phone numbers or Vietnamese identification numbers and store that information alongside full names and dates of birth.
