Cu Huy Ha Vu, 53, was sentenced to seven years imprisonment at the first trial in Hanoi on April 4 for anti-State propaganda.

According to the indictment from the Hanoi People’s Procuracy, from 2009 to October 2010, Vu wrote many anti-State articles and posted them on the Internet.

Vu also wrote articles as replies for interviews for the Voice of America and the Radio Free Asia, in which he called for pluralism and multiparty, demanded to abolish Article 4 of the Constitution, distorted and maligned Party and State guidelines and policies, defamed the administration and State institutions, and spoke ill the resistance wars of the Vietnamese peoples.

The Ministry of Public Security’s investigators seized from Vu about 240 pages of anti-State propaganda.

According to the court, the evidence and documents collected by the investigators proved that Vu’s acts constituted the crime of propagandizing against the State.

“The prosecution of the Hanoi People’s Procuracy is legal and correct”, said the court’s chair, Hanoi People’s Court Chief Judge Nguyen Huu Chinh.

Pursuant to Article 88 of the Criminal Code, Vu was charged with conducting propaganda against the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. He was sentenced seven years in jail and three years under surveillance by the local government.

The four lawyers who defended Vu at the trial were Tran Dinh Trien, Tran Vu Hai, Ha Huy Son and Vuong Thi Thanh.

Nearly 30 local and international news agencies watched the trial through a monitor arranged outside the court room.

Vu is the son of famous poet Huy Can and adopted child of great poet Xuan Dieu. Though he has yet to obtained a certificate to practice law , he worked as a lawyer in several cases. His wife is lawyer Duong Ha.

PV