Vietnam has charged three relatives of a jailed Catholic priest with spying for providing anti-government information and documents to a U.S.-based religious group and radio program, state-controlled media reported Saturday.
The espionage charge means that Nguyen Vu Viet, 28, his brother Nguyen Truc Cuong, 36 and their sister Nguyen Thi Hoa, 44, face either life imprisonment or death, the Phap Luat (Law) newspaper published by the Ministry of Justice said.
The paper did not say when the three had been arrested and when they would be tried. Prosecutors were not available for comment.
The three are cousins of outspoken Catholic priest Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly, who was sentenced in 2001 to 15 years in jail for advocating religious freedom.
Ly, who had a small parish in central Hue, had given written testimony to a U.S. government committee urging the U.S. Congress to delay ratification of a bilateral trade agreement until Vietnam eased restrictions on religion.
His statements outraged the Vietnamese government, which denounced him as a traitor.
The newspaper said the three accused had gathered anti-government information and documents for the U.S.-based Commission for Religious Liberty in Vietnam as well as the Que Huong radio station in San Jose, California between Nov. 2000 to June 2001.
Last month, Vietnam sentenced democracy activist Nguyen Khac Toan to 12 years in jail and three years of house arrest on charges of espionage.
Toan — a North Vietnamese officer during the Vietnam War who was arrested last January at an Internet cafe in Hanoi — was accused of gathering information for "reactionary forces in exile" to sabotage the Vietnamese government, according to a court official.
Communist Vietnam does not tolerate political or religious dissent. Rights groups and the U.S. State Department routinely accuse Hanoi of violating human rights and religious freedoms.
Vietnam routinely maintains that no one is arrested on religious or political grounds, only those who break the law.