Mai Phan Loi, founder and director of the nonprofit Center for Media in Educating Community (MEC), was sentenced to four years in prison on “tax fraud” charges on January 11, 2022. He was also ordered to pay a fine of nearly 2 billion dong ($90K USD). 

June & July 2021:

Mai Phan Loi was temporarily detained on June 24 but was not officially charged and arrested until July 2. As announced by the public security, they charged him with tax evasion, a typical method of political persecution for those for whom the government does not have a strong, clear case. However, there are now several theories concerning the political reason behind his arrest.

First and foremost, Loi may have been  arrested in the prolonged campaign against freedom of the press and freedom of expression instigated by the Vietnamese Communist Party. 

He is the founder of the non-profit Media in Educating Community and the 30,000 member groups called the Young Journalists Forum. These organizations have been recognized as forces  promoting free and critical thinking. In 2016, he was stripped of his press card for making an online survey about the crash of a military Casa 212 and other related military incidents. The growing civil space that he tried to create may have led to the crackdown against him. 

Others, however, believe that his arrest might be connected with Loi’s attempts to build up a connection of NGOs under the regulation of EVFTA. These organizations can play an important role in monitoring Vietnam’s obligations under EVFTA. Read our analysis here.

January 2022:

Mai Phan Loi, founder and director of the nonprofit Center for Media in Educating Community (MEC), was sentenced to four years in prison on “tax fraud” charges on January 11. He was also ordered to pay a fine of nearly 2 billion dong ($90K USD). 

Additionally, Loi faced a “ban of  undertaking managerial positions, and will be prevented from practice or work in the field of taxation within a period of five years after his release."

Noticeably, the State media reported that Loi’s family had paid a compensation of VND 800 million (~US$ 35.600) prior to the trial. So they are responsible to repay the balance of VND 1,2 billion (~US$ 52.400) thereafter. Moreover, it was announced that Loi’s alleged crime partner, Bach Hung Duong, from 2014 to 2021, had supported Loi in evading more than VND 878 million (~US$ 39.000) from financial contributions worth nearly VND 20 billion (~US$ 840.000) that the MEC had received from domestic and foreign donors.

August 2022:

At his appeal trial, Mai Phan Loi had his sentence reduced from 48 months to 45 months. The former chairman of the Committee for Scientific Affairs of the Center for Media in Educating Community (MEC) was convicted of tax evasion. He’s said to have returned about $50,000 of the $80,000 in taxes owed.

According to the wife of political prisoner Dang Dinh Bach, the appeal trials of Mai Phan Loi and Bach Hung Duong were originally scheduled for May 2022 but postponed.