Nguyen Vu Binh

Immediate Concerns

Nov. 2024:

Nguyen Vu Binh is reportedly in poor health. According to former political prisoner Le Anh Hung, who spoke with Binh's family recently, "Binh's blood pressure has risen to 180." Binh is still being held at the temporary detention center in Hoa Lo in Hanoi despite having been convicted on Sept. 10 and sentenced to seven years in prison. It is not clear why the authorities have not yet transferred Binh to a prison so he can begin serving his sentence according to the law. Conditions at detention centers are generally considered to be far worse than in prisons.

Sept. 2024:

On September 10, Nguyen Vu Binh was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison.

See Statement by RFA, PEN International, PEN America and VNAPC on Nguyen Vu Binh’s guilty verdict.

Update:

Nguyen Vu Binh has chosen not to appeal his seven-year sentence for allegedly engaging in “anti-state propaganda.” Former political prisoner Le Anh Dung, released recently, told Project88 that the most probable reasons are: 1. Binh doesn’t believe it would make any difference to appeal with the judicial system of Vietnam being what it is; 2. It would be better for Binh to get out of Hoa Lo Detention Center and be in a real prison where conditions are relatively better; an appeal would only lengthen Binh’s suffering in Hoa Lo Detention Center by several more months.

Dung says a typical cell at Hoa Lo, although designed to hold only about 20 people, usually has more than 40, and sometimes up to 50 detainees. Due to the crowded and unsanitary conditions, many detainees develop skin diseases and other physical ailments. Binh is known to have high blood pressure and lately has been diagnosed with diabetes.  

Background

Binh is a journalist who worked for The Communist Magazine (Tạp Chí Cộng Sản) for 10 years before joining RFA in the early 2000s. 

History of Activism

In December 2000, Binh attempted to file an application to form an independent political party, named Freedom-Democracy Party. He was one of several dissidents who called to form an anti-corruption association in 2001. He is also a founding members of the Democracy Club for Vietnam. 

Binh was convicted on September 25, 2002 and sentenced to seven years in prison for for espionage under Article 80 of the 1999 Criminal Code for allegedly slandering the Vietnamese state in a written testimony Binh provided to the US Congress in July 2002 regarding human rights abuses in Vietnam. Under international pressure, Binh was released two years and three months early from prison, in June 2007.

He was awarded the Hellman-Hammett Prize by Human Rights Watch in 2002 and again in 2007 for his courageous activism.