Another Vietnamese man arrested for anti-government campaign

Police in the central province of Nghe An arrested a local man on Wednesday for allegedly spreading anti-government propaganda.

Nguyen Viet Dung in a photo provided by Nghe An Police

Nguyen Viet Dung, 31, is accused of being part of an organization that was trying to encourage people to fight against the state.

Dung, who went to university in Hanoi, was sentenced to 15 months in jail in the capital in December 2015 for disturbing public order after being found guilty of organizing a protest around Hoan Kiem Lake.

An appeal court commuted the sentence to 12 months last year.

Dung’s arrest is one of a series made by the Vietnamese government this year against citizens accused of plotting to overthrow the government.

A man in the central province of Quang Binh was arrested in early August, a week after the Ministry of Public Security detained six others on similar offenses.

The country has also sent several people to jail this year for attacking the government.

In July, a court in the northern province of Ha Nam sentenced blogger Tran Thi Nga, 40, to nine years in prison for posting anti-state propaganda videos on the internet.

That was a month after blogger Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, 38, received a 10-year sentence from a court in the central province of Khanh Hoa for publishing what authorities called distorted stories and videos about the Communist Party and the government on her Facebook page.

Under Vietnam’s Penal Code, anti-government propaganda is a crime punishable by up to 20 years in jail.