Vietnam: Quash Conviction of Social Media Commentator

(Bangkok) – The Vietnamese authorities should immediately quash the criminal conviction of a prominent commentator on social media and release her, Human Rights Watch said today. On July 29, 2026, a court in Hanoi convicted Hoang Thi Hong Thai and sentenced her to six years in prison. Hanoi police had arrested her on January 7 for comments she made on social media criticizing the Vietnamese government and charged her with anti-state propaganda under article 117 of the penal code. “Hoang Thi Hong Thai should never have been prosecuted for speaking out against injustice and the Vietnamese government’s violations of people’s rights,” said Patricia Gossman, senior associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should immediately release her and others persecuted for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression.” Hoang Thi Hong Thai, 45, has published hundreds of comments on social media focusing on socio-political issues and expressing empathy for people who have suffered government repression. As of July 2026, her Meta account had 118,000 followers. In April 2025, the police interrogated her about her writing and threatened to arrest her. A few days later, she posted a message on social media apologizing for having no choice but to stop writing as the police were pressuring her to choose between expressing her views or taking care of her autistic child. “Be a mother or go to prison,” she wrote. A few days later, she resumed writing. In June 2025, she published an online post criticizing articles 117 and 331 of Vietnam’s penal code for violating the right to freedom of speech enshrined in Vietnam’s constitution, and urged the National Assembly to amend or abolish these laws. Article 117 broadly prohibits “making, storing, disseminating or propagandizing information, materials and products that aim to oppose the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Article 331 criminalizes acts deemed to “infringe upon the interests of the state” with up to seven years in prison. The Vietnamese authorities have intensified the use of article 117 to prosecute other critics for expressing opinions not strictly line with Communist Party views. In the past year, the authorities have convicted and sentenced at least 14 people to prison, and charged at least 12 others under this article. In March 2026, a court in Dak Lak province convicted and sentenced former political prisoner Huynh Ngoc Tuan to eight and a half years in prison for posting his opinions on social media. He had previously served 10 years in prison for writing fiction that did not meet with the government’s approval. In June and July, the police arrested five people for their roles in publishing a controversial book about Ho Chi Minh, the founder of Vietnamese communism. In 2025 and 2026, the authorities have charged six people with anti-state propaganda for their alleged affiliation with the Collective for Democracy and Pluralism, a pro-democracy group founded in France in 1982 to campaign for civil and political rights in Vietnam. They are Quach Gia Khang, 29; Chu Tuan Anh, 28; Nguyen Thanh Tien, 37; Tran Van Khanh, 41; Dinh Thanh Tung, 37; and Nguyen Huu Binh, 31. Others associated with the group are already serving prison terms, including Tran Khac Duc and Nguyen Duy Niem, who were arrested in 2024 and 2025. In November 2025, a court in Ho Chi Minh City convicted and sentenced Tran Khac Duc to seven years in prison. In March 2026, a court in Nghe An province convicted and sentenced Nguyen Duy Niem to five years in prison. On August 3, a freelance journalist, Doan Bao Chau, faces trail in absentia at the People’s Court of Hanoi for participating in discussions on BBC Vietnamese. The authorities accuse him of producing anti-state propaganda and have charged him under article 117 of the penal code. In August 2025, police issued a wanted notice, urging people to turn him in after he had gone into hiding. In December, courts in Hanoi also convicted and sentenced in absentia Le Trung Khoa, a Berlin-based journalist, and Nguyen Van Dai, a former political prisoner, each to 17 years in prison. “The Vietnamese government’s claim at international forums that they uphold human rights is contradicted daily by the persecution of citizens who criticize the Communist Party,” Gossman said. “Vietnam’s international donors and trade partners should publicly urge the Vietnamese authorities to immediately release all those imprisoned for peacefully exercising their right to free expression.”