Defenders Phạm Chí Dũng (standing, right), Nguyễn Tường Thuỵ (left, standing), and Lê Hữu Minh Tuấn (standing behind) appear at the HCM City People's Court on Tuesday to hear the verdict of the charge ‘producing, storing, propagating information, materials, items for the purpose of opposing the Socialist Republic of Việt Nam’ under the Penal Code.'  — VNA/VNS Photo

HCM CITY — Phạm Chí Dũng, the 55-year-old head of the Independent Journalists Association of Việt Nam, was sentenced to prison for 15 years for anti-State propaganda on Tuesday.

The HCM City People’s Court found him guilty of the charge "producing, storing, propagating information, materials, items for the purpose of opposing the Socialist Republic of Việt Nam".

As Dũng’s accomplices, 71-year-old Nguyễn Tường Thụỵ, and Lê Hữu Minh Tuấn, a 32-year-old former student of Hà Nội Law University, were handed 11 years behind bars.

The three will be on probation for another three years after completing their prison sentence.

Dũng, Thụỵ, and Tuấn were all educated individuals but due to their constant exposure to political dissidents, had joined these persons in posting numerous articles and posts mischaracterising and distorting the Party and the State’s policies, the judges said.

The activities of the defendants constituted a danger to society, and their opposition to the State caused division among the public, the indictment reads.

According to the indictment, on July 4, 2014, Thụỵ, Dũng and 39 others announced the establishment of the so-called Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam aiming for regime change in Việt Nam – with Dũng at the helm of the organisation and Thụỵ serving as the deputy leader of the northern region’s branch.

Dũng then created a blogger account named Việt Nam Thời Báo (Việt Nam Times) in addition to an accompanying website to post his own articles along with others with anti-State content and attempted to recruit members both inside and outside the country as well as called for donations to the association.

Minh Tuấn was tasked with the role of the administrator in charge of technical issues for both the website and the blogger account, as well as posted the articles Dũng approved on the two sites.

Investigators found that Dũng used many pseudonyms to post a total of 1,530 articles onto the website and blogger site, Thụỵ wrote 245 articles (under a pseudonym as well), and Tuấn himself posted 534 articles.

Dũng had 25 articles containing content defaming the people’s administration, assailing the reputation of the Party, or attempts to undermine Việt Nam, according to investigators.

Thuỵ was the author of five stories of a similar nature, while Tuấn published six.

Dũng was also said to have done interviews with foreign media to fight for a change of political regime in Việt Nam.

From August 2014 to the mid-2019, Tuấn was paid (by Dũng) more than VNĐ400 million, and he received some VNĐ1 billion to pay as compensation for the works of other contributors.

Thuỵ was paid VNĐ180 million and transferred some VNĐ120 million to other contributors.

Dũng used to work for the HCM City Party Committee.

On October 21, 2019, Dũng was arrested by the police of HCM City, while Thuỵ was detained on May 23, 2020, and Tuấn on June 12, 2020.— VNS