A Vietnam court sentenced Facebook user Pham Van Cho to seven years in prison and two years of probation for his allegedly anti-state propaganda posts on Tuesday. The police of the Hung Yen province arrested Phan Van Cho in January and decided to prosecute him on January 29.

According to local media, Pham Van Cho distributed information on Facebook undermining the Vietnamese Socialist Republic and former president Ho Chi Minh. The Vietnam police alleged in their arrest report that the information shared by Pham Van Cho on his two Facebook accounts was defamatory. Pham Van Cho confessed to managing and posting on the social media accounts. He was prosecuted and found guilty under section 117 of the Vietnam Criminal Code.

Section 117 prohibits “making, storing, spreading information, materials, items to oppose the State of Socialist Republic of Vietnam”. In January 2022, 86 individuals and organisations submitted a petition to abolish Section 117, alongside Sections 109 and 331 of the Criminal Code. Section 109 prohibits “activities against the people’s government”, and Section 331 prohibits “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the State, lawful rights and interests of organizations and/or citizens”. The petition’s creators forwarded it to the Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Chairman of the National Assembly Vuong Dinh Hue. Unclear provisions can often be used against citizens in unforeseeable ways as they can face punishment despite their best efforts to act lawfully.

The Vietnamese government was criticised in the past for its tight restriction on freedom of expression and press freedom, as it often uses the Penal Code to imprison journalists and those speaking out about issues in Vietnam. Prominent journalists Pham Doan Trang and Truong Huy San were both arrested and imprisoned for being critical of the government regime. Reporters Without Borders reported on the matter in 2023, alleging that Vietnam has routinely participated in the arbitrary imprisonment of journalists, stating that:

In Vietnam, where the media have to follow the single party’s orders, 43 journalists spent at least 48 hours in detention in 2023 and 36 are currently held. They include 20 bloggers such as Nguyen Lan Thang, who was sentenced to eight years in prison in April 2023 for “anti-state propaganda.”

Reporters Without Borders ranks Vietnam 174th out of 180 countries in the protection of press freedom.