According to the verdict of the trial of the Hanoi People’s Court on April 4, 2011, Cu Huy Ha Vu, who was born in 1957 and resided at No. 24, Dien Bien Phu Street, Dien Bien ward in Ba Dinh district of Hanoi, was accused of “conducting propaganda against the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” pursuant to Article 88, Item 1, point c of the Penal Code. 

The first trial sentenced Cu Huy Ha Vu to seven years’ imprisonment (the prison term was calculated from his arrest on November 5, 2010) and a three-year probation in his residential area after serving his sentence.

The trial’s verdict concluded that from 2009 to October 2010, Cu Huy Ha Vu had posted many writings and interviews posted on the internet with contents against the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

These writings and interviews distorted the Party and State’s guidelines and policies, defamed the government and State institutions and blackened the Vietnamese people’s resistance war.

The defendant’s activity was charged with “conducting propaganda against the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam”.

After the trial, Cu Huy Ha Vu lodged his appeal to the Supreme People’s Court to reconsider the trial’s verdict.

VNA