Why Vietnam vendor who mocked 'Salt Bae' has been jailed for 5 years

A noodle vendor in Vietnam has been jailed for five and a half years for acting “against the state.” Bui Tuan Lam is accused of making fun of a high-ranking government official by imitating the famous chef “Salt Bae.” The conviction is the latest in what rights groups say is the government’s wide-ranging attempt to silence voices critical of the ruling Vietnamese Communist Party. Let’s take a closer look. Also read: Vietnam’s ingenious plan to stop online scams is to make social media users verify their profiles Noodle vendor sent to jail 39-year-old Bui Tuan Lam was sentenced to five and a half years in prison on Thursday, police said, after a court in Da Nang found him guilty of anti-state propaganda. In 2021, Bui Tuan Lam posted a parody video impersonating Salt Bae – Nusret Gökçe, a Turkish chef who parlayed his meme stardom into high-end eateries – by sprinkling herbs on noodle soup and calling himself “Green Onion Bae," according to AFP. But his video came after a clip of a high-ranking Vietnamese official in London tucking into a steak at Gökçe’s Knightsbridge venue went viral in Vietnam. Lam was in trouble within days of uploading his video and filmed a police visit to his home in the central city of Da Nang.

“They charged the defendant based on posts and video clips Lam had on his accounts on social media platforms,” lawyer Le Dinh Viet told AFP. There was nothing about the Salt Bae clip, he added. He was convicted of “making, storing, distributing, or disseminating information, documents, and items against the state”, the Danang police department said after a one-day trial. Lam denied the charges and said he had only “expressed his personal viewpoint and exercised his right to freedom of speech." He was also sentenced to four years on probation. His publishing of 19 videos on Facebook and 25 videos on YouTube, according to the indictment, “affected the people’s confidence in the leadership of the state.” As a result of his nearly ten years of political activism, Bui Tuan Lam was compelled to leave his work in Ho Chi Minh City and take a job selling noodles in his hometown of Danang, reported BBC. Since 2014, he has been unable to leave Vietnam because his passport was seized. However, this is the first time the police have brought charges against him. Also read: Tech companies continue to abandon China. Here’s why its good news for India, Mexico and Vietnam Vietnam Minister’s luxury meal Days before Tuan Lam’s video, Vietnam’s minister of public security To Lam – whose agency monitors dissent and surveils activists – was caught on camera at the Turkish chef Gökçe’s luxury Nusr-Et Steakhouse restaurant in London. The restaurant serves up steaks wrapped in edible 24-carat gold leaf, reportedly costing more than $1,000 or Rs 82,725, and the video sparked anger over the decadence on display while Vietnam struggled through the Covid pandemic. Since the southeast Asian nation is still recovering from decades of war, a large portion of its people lives below the poverty line, raising questions about the minister’s pricey supper, as per Independent. According to a 2021 assessment by the Asian Development Bank, 4.4 per cent of Vietnam’s population is considered to be living in poverty. During the same trip to London, Lâm also visited the grave of Karl Marx, the ideological father of communism. Lâm, a member of the country’s 16-strong politburo, has been public security minister since 2016 and has taken a hard line on human rights movements in the communist nation. Also read: Vietnam reported 8 per cent economic growth, but upward trend may not sustain Similar incident Vietnam has strict curbs on freedom of expression and the government moves swiftly to stamp out dissent and arrest critics, especially those who find an audience online. Independent media are banned. In April, Vietnam imprisoned Nguyen Lan Thang, a prominent journalist who documented protests and human rights violations, for six years. A year earlier, high-profile dissident journalist Pham Doan Trang was given nine years behind bars. They were jailed on the same anti-state charge. With inputs from AFP Read all the  Latest News,  Trending News,  Cricket News,  Bollywood News,  India News and  Entertainment News here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.