Vietnamese journalist Duong Van Thai is serving a 12-year sentence for anti-state propaganda, a charge authorities frequently use to stifle independent reporting and commentary in the nation’s highly restricted media environment.
Thai was arrested on April 14, 2023, while allegedly trying to re-enter Vietnam in central Ha Tinh province. His family confirmed to CPJ via an intermediary in October of that year that Thai is being held on anti-state charges.
On October 30, 2024, Hanoi’s People’s Court convicted and sentenced Thai in a one-day, closed-door trial under Article 117 of the penal code, a provision that criminalizes “making, storing, disseminating or propagating information, documents, and items aimed at opposing the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” according to multiple reports. Thai’s family was not allowed to attend the trial, the reports said.
Thai, who posts political commentary on his Tin Tuc 24H YouTube channel and has about 119,000 followers, had aired commentary critical of Vietnam’s industrial policy, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, and the country’s finance minister shortly before his arrest. Many of these videos have since been set to private.
Thai also previously ran the Servant’s Tent online news platform, which reported critically on the ruling Communist Party and its top members, and is a member of the banned Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam (IJAVN), according to information on his background supplied to CPJ by the family intermediary.
Thai went missing in Bangkok, Thailand on April 13, 2023, according to multiple news reports. He had lived in Thailand as a refugee since 2020 and had visited the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees’ office hours shortly before his disappearance.
In July, Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security confirmed Thai’s arrest in a letter sent to his family, saying he was in state custody and charged with “propaganda against the state,” an anti-state crime outlined in Article 117 of the penal code, multiple news reports said.
The letter said Thai had “collected information and documents to edit and write articles, recorded video clips with illegal content and distributed them on the internet,” in violation of Article 117, U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported. His family confirmed to CPJ via an intermediary in October that Thai is being held on charges of violating Article 117.
The letter neither confirmed nor denied that Thai was abducted in Thailand and taken back to Vietnam, the report said.
In 2018, Thai had been repeatedly arrested and temporarily detained for several days by authorities at the Ministry of Public Security No. 3 Nguyen Gia Thieu’s headquarters in Hanoi, prompting him to flee to Thailand on February 6, 2019, the family intermediary said. He continued to work as a freelance journalist from Thailand, contributing to various online news sites.
Thai was being detained at Hanoi’s Detention Center B14 while held in pre-trial detention, the letter cited in the RFA report said. His mother, Duong Thi Lu, told RFA in August that she tried to visit Thai in detention but was denied by prison authorities. CPJ could not determine where he was being detained after his conviction in late 2024.
Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security, which oversees the country’s prison system, did not respond to CPJ’s emailed requests for comment on Thai’s legal conviction, sentencing, allegations he was abducted in Thailand and deported to Vietnam, health and treatment in detention in late 2024.