Update: On September 16, 2024, a court in Hanoi sentenced Phan Van Bach to five years in prison.

(Bangkok) - The Vietnamese authorities should immediately drop all charges and release the democracy campaigner Phan Van Bach, Human Rights Watch said today. 

Hanoi police arrested Phan Van Bach, 49, on December 29, 2023, for his posts on Facebook, and charged him under article 117 of the penal code, which prohibits distributing "anti-state propaganda." A court is scheduled to hear his case on September 16, 2024. If convicted, Phan Van Bach faces up to 12 years in prison.

"Phan Van Bach is the latest victim of the Vietnamese government's ongoing campaign to crush all dissent," said Patricia Gossman, associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "The list of Vietnamese citizens locked up for speaking their minds is getting longer, even as Vietnam's trading partners look away from its systemic rights abuses."

Phan Van Bach's trial takes place one week before Vietnam's Secretary General To Lam arrives in New York to attend the United Nations Summit of the Future. 

Since mid-August 2024, Vietnamese courts have tried and sentenced at least nine human rights activists who have campaigned for freedom of expression and social justice, including Nguyen Chi Tuyen, Tran Van Khanh, and Nguyen Vu Binh. All have been sentenced to long prison terms.

Phan Van Bach has been campaigning for basic civil and political rights in Vietnam for more than a decade. He has participated in public demonstrations against Vietnam's repressive Law on Cybersecurity. He joined protests against Formosa Ha Tinh Steel, a Taiwanese company that discharged toxic waste off the coast of Ha Tinh province, killing millions of fish and destroying the livelihoods of fishing communities in April 2016.

Phan Van Bach has also publicly voiced support for fellow activists including prominent rights campaigners Tran Huynh Duy Thuc, Nguyen Tuong Thuy, Pham Chi Thanh, Le Van Dung, Le Trong Hung, Can Thi Theu, and Hoang Duc Binh. 

In March 2016, Phan Van Bach tried to run for the National Assembly as an independent candidate, but his self-nomination was nullified in the first round. Even self-nominated candidates have to be approved by the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam. In May 2021, Phan Van Bach boycotted the next election on the grounds it would not be free and fair.

From 2017 to 2018, Phan Van Bach participated in a YouTube channel called Chan Hung TV ("to reinvigorate [the country]"). A group of activists including Le Van Dung, Le Trong Hung, and others ran the channel as well as the livestream function on Facebook to comment on social and political issues. They interviewed and provided advice to farmers who were facing confiscation of their land, and to people who had experienced other forms of government persecution or injustice, including the mother of a death-row inmate, Ho Duy Hai.

Presenters like Phan Van Bach also provided information about basic rights and law to their viewers, and distributed free copies of Vietnam's constitution. In July 2018, on behalf of Chan Hung TV, Phan Van Bach went to Lam Dong province to visit a fellow activist, Dinh Van Hai, who had been assaulted after visiting another former political prisoner. Dinh Van Hai is serving a five-year prison sentence for criticizing the government.

Because of his activism, the police have harassed, intimidated, detained, and interrogated him numerous times. In a September 2024 interview with Radio Free Asia, Phan Van Bach's wife expressed serious concern about his health in detention, saying that during a short visit in June 2024, she "hardly recognized" her husband, who had lost almost 25 kilograms since his arrest in December 2023.

"The only 'crime' Phan Van Bach committed was to call on the Vietnamese government to respect human rights and stop abusing its citizens," Gossman said. "Vietnam's trade partners, including the US, European Union, Australia, and Japan, need to stop sweeping the Vietnam government's violations under the rug."

Source: Human Rights Watch