Opinion
Vietnam weaponized the law to punish environmental activists

WASHINGTON POST EDITORIAL
April 23, 2023 

Four environmental activists in Vietnam are in prison for “tax evasion.” But that is not the real reason. They were close associates working on a campaign to reduce Vietnam’s reliance on coal, and they were trying to build a civil society movement. Three of them had created nongovernmental organizations and the fourth created an independent online video channel. All pressed for change under Vietnam’s authoritarian state.

The Communist Party of Vietnam holds a monopoly on power and frowns on bloggers and activists who speak out. Vietnam holds 208 activists as political prisoners. In a revelatory new report, Ben Swanton of the human rights group the 88 Project shows how the authorities weaponized the tax evasion law to silence the environmentalists, a tactic favored more and more by dictators seeking to suppress dissent and criticism.

Dang Dinh Bach is a lawyer who was director of the nonprofit group Law and Policy of Sustainable Development Research Center, which worked with communities affected by the dumping of industrial waste, rubber plantations and coal-fired power plants. Nguy Thi Khanh is a pioneering climate activist who founded the Green Innovation and Development Center, a nongovernmental organization, and was awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in 2018. Mai Phan Loi is a journalist and press freedom advocate who established an online video channel featuring shows on climate change and the environment, where debates were held outside the state censorship system. Bach Hung Duong is a lawyer who worked with Mr. Loi.

The four were all involved in a campaign between February and March of 2021, challenging entrenched interests and the state’s plan to expand coal-fired power plants.

Vietnamese law was vague on the question of whether local nongovernmental organizations had to pay corporate income tax. Until the arrests, it was common practice for them not to pay tax on funds received from abroad, according to the Project 88 report. This gave the authorities an opening to arrest the environmentalists. They detained Mr. Bach on grounds that he had not paid taxes on funds received for 10 projects from 2013 to 2020. While indictments of the others are not public, they have faced similar charges of tax evasion based on laws that were not clear. Mr. Bach, Mr. Loi and Mr. Duong were detained June 24, 2021; Ms. Khanh was detained on Jan. 11, 2022.

Most people indicted on a charge of tax evasion in Vietnam are placed under house arrest or released on bail. Eighty-one percent of those convicted do not serve prison time. By contrast, the environmentalists were held for months in pretrial detention. Their one-day trials were closed. All but Mr. Bach pleaded guilty. Mr. Loi was sentenced to 48 months in prison; Mr. Duong to 30 months, reduced to 45 and 27 months, respectively, on appeal. Mr. Bach, who was held incommunicado for a long time, saw a lawyer only once before the trial. He was sentenced to five years in prison, which he appealed. The appeal was denied. Ms. Khanh was sentenced to 24 months in prison, reduced on appeal to 21 months.

The Vietnamese government denies the four were prosecuted for their beliefs. But it looks like a case of using the tax law to punish those who dared challenge a monolithic dictatorship and to set up independent channels for political action. They should all be released.