{"id":26187,"date":"2023-09-28T07:22:28","date_gmt":"2023-09-28T11:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=26187"},"modified":"2023-09-28T07:24:44","modified_gmt":"2023-09-28T11:24:44","slug":"vietnam-jails-fifth-climate-activist-on-tax-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2023\/09\/28\/vietnam-jails-fifth-climate-activist-on-tax-charges\/","title":{"rendered":"Vietnam jails fifth climate activist on tax charges"},"content":{"rendered":"
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One of Vietnam’s best-known climate activists has been sentenced to three years in prison over tax evasion.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Hoang Thi Minh Hong is the fifth Vietnamese activist to be jailed over the charge.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Campaigners say it is part of a state-authorised move to silence criticism of the country’s climate policies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Hoang Thi Minh Hong was convicted on Thursday in Ho Chi Minh City in a trial that lasted just three hours. She was also fined $4,100 (\u00a33,380).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Human rights groups say this was a preordained outcome to a politically-driven case. They point out that activists have been treated more severely than other people held on tax evasion charges, being detained and denied access to lawyers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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NGOs in Vietnam have long existed in a legal “grey zone”, where there are no specific requirements for them to pay tax on donations from overseas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Yet the state has interpreted ambiguous laws in the most punitive way for the cases of these activists – in what looks like a targeted campaign against environmentalists. That impression was reinforced when a sixth person, Ngo Thi To Nhien, the executive director for Vietnam Initiative for Energy Transition, was arrested two weeks ago.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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No information has yet been published about what charges she faces. Her think tank had been working with the World Bank, UN and US agencies on green energy and she was generally regarded as more of a low-profile advocate than an outspoken campaigner.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The decision to prosecute climate activists is especially incongruous as Vietnam has signed up to a landmark Just Energy Transition Partnership, the third country to do so. It has pledged to reduce its heavy dependence on coal-fired electricity and move to sustainable power with the help of $15bn (\u00a312.3bn) of international financial aid.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Vietnam\u00a0is listed as one of the countries most vulnerable to the impact of climate change,<\/a>\u00a0and the government has given the country the ambitious target of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by the year 2050, a target now enshrined in law and backed by a National Climate Change Strategy. These are all goals shared by the detained activists.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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