Tran Dinh Trien

After a trial on Jan. 9-10, 2025, Tran Dinh Trien was convicted of “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the State, lawful rights and interests of organizations and/or citizens” under Article 331 of Vietnam’s criminal code. He was sentenced to three years in prison for a single Facebook post.

Project88 obtained a copy of the criminal investigation report and the indictment; the documents reveal that Trien was arrested because of a Facebook post he made on April 23, 2024, in which he criticized Nguyen Hoa Binh, chief justice of Vietnam’s supreme court. The charges against Trien violate international law. He was criminally prosecuted for criticizing a public official, an impermissible restriction on speech. His conviction sets a dangerous precedent for other lawyers in Vietnam. Read more about his case and its interpretation under international law, here.

Background

Trien was the deputy director of the Hanoi Bar Association from 2013 to 2018. He founded the Vi Dan (“for the people”) Law Firm in 2006, which works to ‘protect and implement justice, especially for disadvantaged and mistreated people.’

Throughout his career, Trien has put Vi Dan’s mission into practice. In 2010, Trien defended two women who were criminally prosecuted for their involvement in a child sex trafficking ring even though they were victims of the ring. The operation, which was run by a high school principal in Ha Giang province, trafficked and sold minors to powerful men, including Nguyen Truong To, deputy party boss of Ha Giang province. Due to Trien’s defense, the court requested that the police re-investigate the case. Ultimately, the women were acquitted, the principal was sentenced to nine years in prison, and the party boss was removed from office.

Then, in 2016, Trien protested Vietnam’s treatment of lawyers and petitioned the National Assembly to create stronger protections for lawyers. Specifically, Trien complained that lawyers are prevented from effectively participating in legal proceedings because:

• Lawyers are often not invited by police to protect their client’s rights during interrogations.
• Lawyers are frequently denied requests to meet with their clients, making it difficult to prepare an adequate defense.
• Vietnamese authorities accuse lawyers of being anti-state dissidents due to the clients that they take on to defend. As such, many lawyers are reluctant to take on certain cases, preventing people from obtaining legal counsel.