Noodle vendor in Vietnam gets imprisoned for mocking top government official's lavish dining

A noodle vendor in Vietnam, famous for impersonating the famous celebrity chef "Salt Bae", was sentenced to five and a half years in prison on Thursday for allegedly mocking a powerful government official, said the police after a court supposedly found him guilty of anti-state propaganda.

The conviction by the court is the latest in what as per the rights group is the government's wide-ranging attempt to silence the voices that are disapproving of the ruling Vietnamese Communist Party.

In November 2021, a video of 39-year-old Bui Tuan Lam went viral when it was shared days after a powerful Vietnamese official was captured eating gold-encrusted steak at the London restaurant of the Turkish chef whose real name is Nusret Gökçe.

Add WION as a Preferred Source

Lam, who described himself in a Facebook post uploaded alongside the video as "Green Onion Bae", was arrested late last year.

On Thursday, 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.

"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.

He added that there was nothing about the Salt Bae clip.

Lam denied the charges and said he had only "expressed his personal viewpoint and exercised his right to freedom of speech".

As per Reuters reports, apart from running a beef noodle stall in the city, Lam had been a public advocate for democracy in Vietnam and had also been an active participant in many anti-China and pro-environment protests.

The Danang police department also cited Lam's indictment as saying he had posted 19 articles and 25 videos on social media to "distort and smear the state."

Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, called on the Vietnamese government to stop prosecuting Lam and others for criticising the Vietnamese Communist Party.

"The list of posts and videos listed as 'evidence' of Bui Tuan Lam's 'crimes' shows the extreme lengths to which the Vietnamese go to block any sort of online criticism of the government," Phil said.

"For the Vietnamese leadership, even songs are a threat to their monopoly of power," he added.

(With inputs from agencies)

WATCH WION LIVE HERE