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Drilled

In Vietnam, Tax Evasion Charges Help Lock Up Climate Activists

Drilled

Critical Frequency

True Crime, Earth Sciences, Social Sciences, Science

4.82.3K Ratings

🗓️ 11 September 2023

⏱️ 26 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

President Biden made his first trip to Vietnam as President this week, with the intention of "upgrading" diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Vietnam. Not on the agenda? The country's move to use trumped-up tax evasion charges to suppress civil society groups, including five climate activists that have been imprisoned using this tactic since 2021. Read The 88 Project's report on this practice: https://the88project.org/weaponizing-the-law-to-prosecute-the-vietnam-four/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hanoi is one of the most rapidly developing cities in Asia and also has some of the poorest

0:10.7

air quality on the continent.

0:14.2

Hong-Wi-T was already keenly aware of the city's pollution problem, but a study from Harvard

0:19.9

University brought the issue into sharper focus for her.

0:24.0

This is a video about Vietnamese activists Hong-Wi-T in 2018 when she won the Goldman

0:30.6

Prize, a prestigious environmental award given to a handful of extraordinarily impactful environmental

0:37.8

activists every year.

0:40.0

She received the award for her work convincing the government not to include a massive

0:44.9

coal buildout in its energy blueprint for Hanoi.

0:48.8

For years later, the Vietnamese government had arrested and imprisoned her.

0:53.6

For tax evasion charges, that legal observers have deemed false and politically motivated.

1:00.5

Four other prominent environmental activists have also been arrested and jailed for tax

1:06.2

evasion in Vietnam since 2021.

1:09.5

Here's Betsy Apple, Executive Director of the Global Climate Legal Defense Network

1:15.1

to explain.

1:18.8

You have five people who were advocating for renewable energy policy in Vietnam, adjust

1:27.5

transition to sustainable energy sources, and four people initially and then a fifth

1:32.4

were arrested for tax evasion and are in jail and have been criminally convicted for

1:40.0

tax evasion, which seems like it has nothing to do with the climate, but in fact, it's

1:47.0

a way that the Vietnamese government has been able to weaponize the law against people

1:54.1

whose activities they don't like in the context of the climate.

1:59.6

That fifth person she mentioned was another internationally renowned environmental activist.

...

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