(Bloomberg) -- The US is “deeply concerned’ about the sentencing of Vietnam environmental advocate Nguy Thi Khanh to two years in prison and calls for her release, State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement on its website. 

Khanh was sentenced on tax evasion charges, Agence France-Presse reported Saturday, citing information from her non-profit organization. She was sentenced in Hanoi on Friday, AFP said, citing a court official. Khanh was arrested in February, Tuoi Tre newspaper has reported. 

Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

“We note authorities arrested her on the same day the Hanoi People’s Court sentenced environmental activists Mai Phan Loi and Bach Hung Duong, and later the same month activist Dang Dinh Bach, to prison terms on similar charges,” Price said in the statement. “Civil society partners are a crucial part of helping countries like Vietnam meet their climate change and environmental protection goals.”

Khanh is a 2018 winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize, which honors individual efforts to protect the environment. 

In 2011, she founded Green Innovation and Development Centre, or GreenID, to promote sustainable energy development in Vietnam, according to the Goldman Environmental Prize website. Khanh also established the Vietnam Sustainable Energy Alliance, a network of 11 Vietnamese and international groups that collaborate on regional energy issues. Her work focuses on reducing dependence on fossil fuels and coal power, it said. 

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