Two young people who had conducted propaganda against the State had their sentences reduced considerably at the appeal trial opened in southern Long An province on Friday.

>> Anti-State leafleteers sentenced to 6-8 years The appeal court of the Supreme People’s Court in Ho Chi Minh City on August 16 opened an appeal trial in Long An for two anti-State agitators, Dinh Nguyen Kha, 25, and Nguyen Phuong Uyen, a former 21-year-old student. They were charged with “conducting propaganda against the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam”. After considering their appeals and related arguments, the court decided to sentence Kha to a four-year jail term, instead of 8 years’ imprisonment previously given by the lower court. Meanwhile, Nguyen Phuong Uyen had her six-year jail term reduced to a three-year suspended sentence and a 52-month probation.

According to the indictment Kha, of Long An province’s Tan An city, and Uyen, who lived in central Binh Thuan province, made friends with Nguyen Thien Thanh, a Vietnamese man who was living in Thailand, between April and May 2012, via social network Facebook. Thanh incited the two young people to join the so-called “Tuoi Tre Yeu Nuoc” (Patriotic Youth), a reactionary organization against the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, to which Thanh was a member. On August 31, 2012, Thanh sent Kha three files with different contents to spread in urban and rural areas and roads. Thanh also asked Kha to take several  photographs and sent them to thanh for posting on the Tuoi Tre Yeu Nuoc website.

Incited by Thanh, Kha and Uyen prepared, stored and circulated anti-State documents. In August 2012, they erected a yellow flag with three red stripes, the flag of the former Saigon regime before 1975, and a banner that defames the Communist Party of Vietnam in public spaces in Tan An city and Ham Tri commune. Kha and Uyen took photographs of the scene and sent them to Thanh to publish on the said website.

On October 10, 2012, the pair scattered leaflets on An Suong flyover in Ba Diem commune, Hoc Mon district, Ho Chi Minh City.

The court concluded that both Kha and Uyen, under the direction of Thanh via the Internet, conducted organized actions against the Vietnamese State. They were charged under Point C, Clause 1, Article 88 of the Penal Code.

Police have been hunting for Thanh, the instigator in this case, the court said.