VietNamNet Bridge – The appeal court of the Supreme People’s Court has sentenced Le Thanh Tung from Hanoi’s Soc Son District to four years in prison and four years probation on the charge of “conducting propaganda against the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam”.

Saboteur gets five years' jail

The sentence was pursuant to Points A and C, Clause 1, Article 88 of the Vietnam Penal Code.

According to the indictment, the Hanoi Department of Information and Communications on November 10, 2011 requested that Hanoi Police launch investigations into Le Thanh Tung, the author of a number of articles on the internet defaming the Vietnamese State, demanding a multi-party system and changes to the national constitution. Tung described himself as a reporter of the "Vietnam Freedom and Democracy Movement".

The investigations confirmed that Tung, born in 1968, had written and posted on the internet several articles from August 2009 to October 2011 that distorted the truth about Vietnam’s society and authorities, sabotaging the National Party Congress and the elections of the National Assembly and People’s Councils.

The first instance trial of Tung was held in August 2011 and concluded with a verdict of five years’ imprisonment and four years’ house arrest.

VietNamNet/VOV