Police arrested Cu Huy Ha Vu Nov. 4 after he wrote articles and posted them on the Internet. He also gave interviews criticizing the communist government.

Vu denied all charges, saying the case was "invented" against him and the trial was "completely illegal."

Several days after Vu's arrest, the Ministry of Public Security's Investigation Agency gave a news conference to announce his detention, saying he was taken into custody at Mach Lam Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City for having sexual relations with a prostitute.

Police seized Vu's mobile phone and laptop computer and searched his house in Hanoi the day of his arrest. Documents allegedly found included articles calling for the overthrow of the communist government, which has been in power since North Vietnam succeeded in overthrowing the South Vietnam regime in what was Saigon in 1975.

Vietnam media said Vu was "calling for pluralism, multiparty and foreign intervention which goes contrary to the nation's interest."

He also "granted more than 20 interviews to anti-Vietnam overseas reactionary elements, radios and newspapers and transferred his own documents to them to use in oppose the Vietnamese state." He "distorted information on the state's leadership and management to incite the public to rise up against the state."

A judge in court, which was closed to foreign journalists but who watched proceedings on closed-circuit television, said Vu was "harmful to society" and he had "blackened directly or indirectly the Communist Party of Vietnam."

Vu, 54, is a son of a Vietnamese poet Cu Huy Can -- a close friend of Ho Chi Minh, the most famous communist leader during the Indochina War with colonial power France starting in 1945 and also during the Vietnam War.

Vu graduated with a doctorate in law from France's University of Paris.

U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Vietnam's "apparent lack of due process" for Vu's trial raised questions about Hanoi's commitment to the rule of law.

Human Rights Watch condemned the detention of Vu and earlier this month called for his release. During the past five years, Vu "has emerged as one of the most prominent defenders of cultural, environmental, and human rights in Vietnam," a Human Rights Watch statement said.

"Cu Huy Ha Vu is being tried for his political bravery in peacefully challenging abuses of power, defending victims of land confiscation, and protecting the environment," Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said.

"The government makes a mockery of its international human rights obligations when it persecutes activists like Dr. Cu who try to use the legal system to demand official accountability and rule of law."

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