Vu Duc Trung

Vũ Đức Trung is a Vietnamese radio journalist. He is a member of the Falun Gong religious movement.

Arrests Trung and Thanh were arrested in April 2011, prompting a protest by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). The organization charged that the Vietnamese government was doing the bidding of the Chinese government. "Beijing's reach does not stop at China's borders," said RSF spokesman Gilles Lordet. "Reporters Without Borders has learned that the Chinese government successfully pressured the Vietnamese authorities to arrest two people, Vũ Đức Trung and Le Van Thanh." The trial was postponed and rescheduled for 6 October 2011. It was then postponed again.

Protests On 8 November 2011, about 30 members of Falun Gong held a demonstration in support of Trung and Thanh. They were detained by police and driven away by bus. by the Supreme People's Court of Vietnam. They were found guilty under a section of the penal code that bans "the illegal transmission of information on a telecommunications network." Their lawyer, Trần Đình Triển, reportedly asked to be shown any law that prohibited broadcasting into China, but received no response. On the same day, Trung and Thanh were sentenced to prison terms of three years and two years respectively for illegally broadcasting to China.

Responses RSF called the sentences handed down to the two men "harsh and outrageous," stating that "The unlicensed transmission of programmes that were not in Vietnamese nor aimed at a Vietnamese audience should not have been characterized as anything other than an administrative offence. This verdict shows the authorities were conveying the anger of their Chinese counterparts, who were the targets of the criticism expressed in the radio programmes." RSF called on "the international community to put pressure on the Vietnamese government" for the two men's immediate release, which RSF described as part of a "growing crackdown" in Vietnam on journalists and bloggers.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) called the sentences against Trung and Thanh "a violation of freedom of expression. Phil Robertson, HRW's deputy Asia director, said, "Vietnam should not violate human rights and punish its own citizens merely because their activism displeased China."

Falun Gong spokesman Erping Zhang called the day of the men's guilty verdict a "sad day for Vietnam," adding that their broadcasts did "absolutely nothing to harm Vietnamese society or break Vietnamese law." He added, "Sentencing Trung and Thanh to prison in a show trial is shameless and sets a dangerous precedent of the Vietnamese government caving to Chinese Communist Party pressure."