Vietnamese activist faces 14 years in jail for anti-pollution protest livestream

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An activist in central Vietnam has been sentenced to 14 years in prison on Tuesday for livestreaming a protest against a Taiwanese steel company’s spill of toxins into the ocean.

Hoang Duc Binh was convicted of “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe on the interests of the state, organisation and people and opposing officers on duty,” lawyer Ha Huy Son said in a report by The South China Morning Post. His fellow activist, Nguyen Nam Phong, was sentenced to two years for “opposing officers on duty.”

The protest comes after Formosa Plastics Group, a steel complex which in total is worth $10.6 billion (around P546 billion), dumped toxins such as phenol and cyanide into the ocean in April 2016. More than 200 kilometers of coastline was damaged, massively killing fishes and other sea life.

Binh commented on the livestream, posted on Facebook on February 2017, that authorities had beaten the fishermen who joined the protest.

Son defended his client by saying that he did not commit a crime because his statement was based on facts; but the court asserted that what Binh said was not true and thus slandered authorities, the report said.

Their case attracted attention from international human rights groups and some governments from Western countries. It is being looked at as a case of persecution for expressing views against state authorities.

The toxin spill has been considered as Vietnam’s worst environmental disaster. Katrina Hallare/JB

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