Vietnamese woman arrested for anti-government activities

By Cuu Long   April 2, 2020 | 11:03 pm PT
Vietnamese woman arrested for anti-government activities
Nguyen Thi Kim Phuong is held at a police station in An Giang Province for carrying out anti-government activities, April 2, 2020. Photo courtesy of An Giang Police.
Police in the southern province of An Giang on Thursday arrested a woman for activities aimed against the authority of the state.

Nguyen Thi Kim Phuong, 53, is being investigated for "carrying out activities aimed at overthrowing the people's administration."

Sedition is punishable by death in Vietnam.

Searching her home in Long Xuyen Town, police officers seized documents and other evidence related to activities seeking to overthrow the government.

Investigators said she joined the "Provisional National Government of Vietnam" in 2018, an organization classified as terrorist by the Ministry of Public Security.

She and her accomplices held a "referendum" in which the 159 participants voted for Dao Minh Quan as "the third president of the Republic of Vietnam," the latter name referring to the U.S.’s proxy state of South Vietnam before the country’ reunification.

The so-called provisional national government of Vietnam was established in 1990 in the U.S. with aim of overthrowing the Vietnamese government through violence and acts of terrorism, according to the ministry.

Vietnamese authorities have already issued international arrest warrants against Quan and six others, all living in the U.S. or Canada.

In August 2018 two of its members, both Vietnamese-Americans, were jailed in Vietnam for making plans to sabotage the celebration of Vietnam’s Reunification Day, April 30, in 2017.

The organization was also accused of being behind a petrol bomb attack that burnt 320 motorbikes at a police warehouse in the southern Dong Nai Province in April 2017, and a failed terror attack at HCMC's Tan Son Nhat International Airport later that month.

In December 2017 a HCMC court sentenced 15 Vietnamese to between five and 16 years in prison for the two attacks.

Since late 2013 its members have been accused of carrying out false propaganda against the policies of the Vietnamese government and Communist Party, instigating people to carry out acts of terrorism and calling for protests against and sabotage of national holidays.

 
 
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