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Le Quoc Quan, right, listens to the judge during his trial in Hanoi, Vietnam. Associated Press
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Plainclothes police block protesters from a Hanoi court on Wednesday. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
The former wartime foes have developed a growing commercial and military relationship in recent years, culminating in Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang's visit to the White House to meet PresidentBarack Obama in July. But human rights issues continue to undermine prospects for a broader relationship, with the U.S. paying particular attention to the case of Le Quoc Quan, the 42-year-old activist sentenced Wednesday.
The U.S. Embassy in Hanoi quickly issued a statement following Mr. Quan's conviction, accusing Vietnam of using tax laws for political ends and urging its government to release other political prisoners.
"The use of tax laws by Vietnamese authorities to imprison government critics for peacefully expressing their political views is disturbing," the embassy said. "We call on the government to release prisoners of conscience and allow all Vietnamese to peacefully express their political views."
Mr. Quan maintained his innocence throughout the half-day-long proceedings, describing himself as being the victim of "political plots" during the hearing before an audio feed to assembled reporters and diplomats was cut. "If the court represents justice, then find me innocent," he said.
The lead judge, Le Thi Hop, said Mr. Quan was found guilty for evading payment on $30,000 in corporate income tax relating to a consultancy he ran in Hanoi. He was arrested last December while on his way to drop his daughter off at school shortly after posting an article on his blog criticizing the Communist Party's monopoly on power in Vietnam.
Mr. Quan's lawyer Ha Huy Son said that his client will appeal the conviction. "I myself found that the evidence that the prosecutors presented wasn't really convincing," Mr. Son said.
Vietnamese government officials couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
For the U.S. and other foreign governments, Mr. Quan has come to symbolize the fate of many other Vietnamese dissidents, and Vietnamese authorities appeared wary of the potential of Wednesday's trial for drawing more protests. Security in the area was tight, with hundreds of police deployed as scores of Mr. Quan's supporters rallied at a nearby Roman Catholic church, chanting for justice.
At least 46 activists, including many bloggers, have been jailed for criticizing the leadership of Vietnam's Communist Party this year, more than in all of 2012. Reporters Without Borders in July said that Vietnam was second only to China in the number of bloggers it has detained. Others have been targeted in tax-evasion cases, including Nguyen Van Hai, better known by his pen name, Dieu Cay, which means clay pipe, who was charged in 2008.
The crackdown highlights the concern that Vietnam's authoritarian leaders have about the Internet. Web-penetration figures are quickly rising, and more than a third of Vietnamese are now online, a higher percentage than in Indonesia or Thailand. Dissidents are increasingly using the medium to criticize a lack of civil rights and the government's management of the economy, which is only just recovering from a sharp accumulation of debt.
Mr. Quan had a particularly broad reach, discussing topics that are usually off limits in Vietnam's heavily controlled state media, including human rights and political issues.
In 2007, he was arrested after returning from a fellowship at the U.S.-based National Endowment for Democracy, prompting U.S. Senator John McCain and former Secretary of State Madeline Albright to request his release. Amnesty International subsequently declared Mr. Quan, who is also a Roman Catholic, to be a prisoner of conscience, and he was released three months later.
Mr. Quan was briefly detained again in 2011 for attempting to observe the trial of another dissident, and has since accused authorities of orchestrating an often-violent intimidation campaign against him and his supporters.