Vietnam detains climate activist on tax evasion accusation
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Ms Hoang Thi Minh Hong is the founder of now-defunct NGO Change, which aimed to tackle some of Vietnam’s most urgent environmental issues.
PHOTO: HONG HOANG/FACEBOOK
HANOI – The Vietnamese authorities have detained a prominent climate activist for alleged tax evasion, her husband said on Friday, adding to a list of environmentalists facing the accusation.
Ms Hoang Thi Minh Hong, founder of now-defunct non-governmental organisation (NGO) Change, which aimed to tackle some of the country’s most urgent environmental issues, was taken into custody in Ho Chi Minh City on Wednesday.
“I can confirm Hong has been under temporary detention since May 31 with the accusation of tax evasion,” Mr Hoang Vinh Nam told AFP.
Ms Hong founded Change in 2013, focusing on mobilising Vietnamese, particularly young people, to take action against pressing environmental issues including climate change, the illegal wildlife trade, and pollution.
She announced in 2022 that Change would close after Vietnam’s government handed down prison terms for tax evasion to four environmental human rights defenders,
Mr Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said: “Vietnam’s selective use of its vague and flawed tax law to target environmentalists and climate change activists with politically motivated prosecutions is a new, extremely troubling development.”
“Leading environmental activist Hoang Thi Minh Hong is the latest victim in this accelerating crackdown.”
Ms Hong, 50, has been widely recognised for her work, joining the Obama Foundation Scholars Programme at Columbia University in New York in 2018 and listed by Forbes among the 50 most influential Vietnamese women in 2019.
The UN’s human rights body said it was “deeply troubled” by the detention.
“The chilling effect of such cases brought under tax laws is palpable among civil society in Vietnam, and risks stifling debate on issues of importance to society as a whole,” said Ms Marta Hurtado, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Ms Khanh, a globally recognised climate and energy campaigner who won the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2018, spent nearly a year in jail before she was released in May.
Founder of Green ID, one of Vietnam’s most prominent environmental organisations, Ms Khanh had been among the few in the communist nation challenging the government’s plans to increase coal power.
Dang Dinh Bach, a community lawyer and NGO worker, worked to inform people whose health and livelihoods were threatened by coal projects and other dirty industries. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has determined that his imprisonment is unlawful.
Vietnam has committed to reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, and a group of rich nations in 2022 pledged to raise at least US$15.5 billion (S$20.9 billion) to help get the country off fossil fuels.
Mr Ben Swanton, co-director of Project 88, a non-profit organisation advocating for human rights in Vietnam, said Ms Hong’s arrest demonstrated that “contrary to its propaganda, the Vietnamese government does not respect the rule of law and does not want civil society to participate in the country’s energy transition”.
In response to an AFP question on Hong’s arrest on Thursday, Mr Nguyen Duc Thang, deputy spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, said: “Vietnam has always affirmed its strong commitment in environmental protection and coping with climate change, green and sustainable development.
“In Vietnam, individuals, associations and organisations, NGOs are guaranteed normal operation in accordance with laws and regulations, while at the same time, they must obey and take responsibilities for their activities before laws.” AFP
