HANOI, Jan 10, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - A Vietnamese court sentenced a prominent
former lawyer to three years in jail Friday over Facebook posts it ruled
undermined the state by criticising a leading judge.

Tran Dinh Trien, former deputy head of the Hanoi Bar Association, is the
latest high-profile lawyer to be targeted by authorities for what they have
written online.

Rights campaigners say authorities in communist, one-party Vietnam have in
recent years stepped up a crackdown on civil society and weaponised the law
to silence government critics.

The court in Hanoi convicted the 65-year-old Trien on charges of "abusing
democratic freedoms to infringe upon state interests", and sentenced him to
three years in prison.

The court said he had written posts on his personal Facebook page containing
"unauthenticated content" that "affected the reputation of the courts and the
chief judge of the supreme court personally".

Trien, head of the Vi Dan "For the People" legal firm in Hanoi, was arrested
in June. His legal licence was suspended last week.

Deputy chair of the Hanoi Bar Association from 2013-2018, Trien has defended
activists and represented clients on sensitive issues such as land
confiscation.

The three Facebook posts he was charged over were uploaded in April and May
last year.

In them, he criticised the chief justice of the supreme court, who he said
prevented defendants' family members from attending trials and journalists
and lawyers from recording video during open trials, according to Human
Rights Watch.

- Controls on speech -

The state Vietnam News Agency (VNA) said Trien and his lawyers had argued
that he was exercising his right to free speech in the posts, and they did
not violate the law.

But the court ruled that while free speech was recognised by the Vietnamese
constitution, people must not "take advantage" of this to damage state
interests, VNA reported.

"The trial panel determined that Tran Dinh Trien's actions were very serious,
negatively affecting security, order, and social safety," VNA said.

While Vietnam notionally allows free speech, in practice it is very tightly
restricted, and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) ranks the country 74th out of
180 for press freedom, describing it as one of the world's worst jailers of
journalists.

Article 331 of the penal code -- the section Trien was charged under -- was
used to convict and sentence at least 24 people in 2024 alone, according to
Human Rights Watch.

Ahead of the verdict in the trial, held over a day and a half under tight
security, The 88 Project -- which advocates for freedom of expression in
Vietnam -- said the charges against Trien were a violation of international
law.

Last month new rules came into force in Vietnam requiring Facebook and TikTok
to verify user identities and hand over data to authorities.

Under "Decree 147", all tech giants operating in Vietnam must verify user
accounts by phone numbers or Vietnamese identification numbers and store that
information alongside their full name and date of birth.