"The United States is concerned by the detention of leaders and staff of CHANGE, including the ongoing detention of CHANGE’s founder Hoang Thi Minh Hong," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement. Hong and the other members were taken into custody on Wednesday according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. She is the fifth prominent environmental human rights defender arrested in Vietnam for alleged tax evasion in the last two years, the U.N. rights agency said. The United States and the United Nations both said the detentions were part of a wider trend of Vietnamese authorities targeting free speech. She shut the group down last year after the arrests of other human rights defenders, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a statement on Friday.

Source: Forbes June 02, 2023 16:11 UTC