A Court of Appeals under the Supreme People’s Court on April 29 upheld the sentence of five-and-a-half years in prison handed down on Tran Anh Kim on charges of “conducting activities to overthrow the people’s administration”.

According to the court’s verdict, Tran Anh Kim, who was born in 1949 and a resident of Thai Binh City in the Red River delta province of the same name, joined other protestors at a so-called “the Democratic Party of Vietnam” organisation and was assigned to be in charge of the said organisation’s movement in Thai Binh province.

A security agency document said that Kim compiled and posted 85 comments on the internet and that he confessed he had written and distributed more than 60 comments containing information against the State and providing information to hostile forces in exile to subvert the state of Vietnam.

The Investigative Security Agency determined that Tran Anh Kim and a number of elements lured malcontents into establishing opposition groups called the “Anticorruption association” and the “Unjustly-punished association”, incited the public to flock to Hanoi , the northern port city of Hai Phong and HCM City in protest, and photographed and recorded images to send to reactionaries overseas.

On June 13, 2009, Tran Anh Kim was appointed by Nguyen Sy Binh as deputy secretary general of “the Democratic Party of Vietnam” and put up a sign to publicly identify the organisation’s office at his private house in Thai Binh City . However, this activity was stopped by the investigation agency.

On July 7, 2009, Thai Binh provincial police started legal proceedings against Kim and held him in custody.

On Dec. 28, 2009, the People’s Court of Thai Binh province sentenced Tran Anh Kim to five and a half years in prison and three years of probation on charges of “carrying out activities aimed at overthrowing the people’s administration” in accordance with clause 1, Article 79 of the Criminal Code.

Kim appealing, asking for a commuted sentence, but the court panel rejected his appeal, citing that his lawyer Dang Ngoc Phuc had failed to make a persuasive argument.

The court panel agreed that this was a special case of a breach of national security. The convicted saboteur not only acted on his own account but also colluded closely with overseas Vietnamese reactionaries and organisations to overthrow the state of Vietnam./.