(Bloomberg) -- U.S. citizen William Nguyen will today appear in a Vietnamese court charged with causing public disorder during protests in Ho Chi Minh City, after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asked the country’s leaders to quickly resolve his case.
The Houston native, arrested June 10, is facing a sentence of up to seven years in prison, according to the Vietnam penal code. Nguyen was arrested the day after arriving in Vietnam as a tourist during a demonstration against proposed special economic zones that Vietnamese fear will lead to Chinese encroachment, and cybersecurity legislation they believe will curb online freedoms.
The case has called attention to Vietnam’s crackdown on public expression and internet freedoms and comes as the communist government seeks closer economic ties with the U.S., its third-largest trade partner. U.S. lawmakers have also raised concerns over the new cybersecurity law that requires companies such as Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc. to store data of local users in the country.
The trial comes after Pompeo raised the issue of the Vietnamese-American with Vietnam’s leaders during his visit to Hanoi that concluded July 9. Pompeo “encouraged a speedy resolution to his case,” according to State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert. U.S. congress members have called for Nguyen’s release.
The U.S. Embassy in Hanoi did not immediately respond to questions. The Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to Bloomberg’s inquiry only to note that the trial would go ahead today.
Expressing ‘Regret’
A court in the southeastern province of Binh Thuan on July 12 sentenced six Vietnamese to as much as 30 months in jail after being convicted of “disturbing public order” in front of the local government’s headquarters June 10 and 11, according to Tuoi Tre newspaper. A minor was given 18 months probation.
Nguyen’s arrest was captured on video, and shows him bloodied and being dragged away and beaten. In a police video broadcast on state television last month, he acknowledged violating Vietnamese law, expressed “regret” for disrupting traffic and promised not to participate in activities against the government.
Nguyen, a Yale University graduate, was expected to receive a master’s degree on July 14 from the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, said his sister, Victoria Nguyen, who is in Vietnam for the trial.
Nguyen told his mother Vicky Nguyen during her 30-minute visit with him in jail July 17 that he was kept with 13 others in a cell with a large window, and wasn’t sleeping well but was teaching English to fellow inmates, Victoria Nguyen said.
--With assistance from Mai Ngoc Chau and Nguyen Dieu Tu Uyen.
To contact the reporter on this story: John Boudreau in Hanoi at jboudreau3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ruth Pollard at rpollard2@bloomberg.net, Jason Koutsoukis
©2018 Bloomberg L.P.
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