A Vietnam court Tuesday sentenced a journalist who wrote about issues including corruption, land rights and the environment to seven years in jail, his sister said, the latest government critic to be put behind bars.

Nguyen Vu Binh -- a political activist who served almost five years in jail in the early 2000s -- was accused of producing propaganda against the state.

Communist Vietnam has no free media and clamps down hard on any dissent. It is the world's third biggest jailer of journalists according to the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) press freedom campaign group.

"He was given seven years in jail," his sister Nguyen Thi Phong told AFP following the trial in Hanoi.

"At the trial, he told the court he was innocent. He said he did not call on anyone to act against the state. He said he was exercising his right to freedom of speech."

Analysts say authorities in Vietnam have escalated a crackdown on dissent in recent years.

"Nguyen Vu Binh has tirelessly campaigned for human rights and democracy in Vietnam," Patricia Gossman, associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch (HRW), said ahead of the verdict.

"His peaceful expression of political dissent is not a crime," Gossman added.

Binh, 55, was arrested in late February on the same day as Nguyen Chi Tuyen, an influential YouTuber and campaigner who spoke out on pollution and land rights.

Last month, Tuyen was found guilty of "making, storing and disseminating information, documents and materials against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam" and jailed for five years.

Binh had spent a decade as a journalist at the official Communist Party of Vietnam's journal.

He resigned in late 2000 and attempted to form an independent political party.

He was imprisoned between late 2003 and June 2007 for espionage.

After his release, Binh blogged for Radio Free Asia, writing about corruption, land rights, the environment and Vietnam's relations with China and the United States.

Binh twice received a prestigious Hellman/Hammett grant, given to victims of political persecution, in 2002 and 2007.

In August and September, Vietnamese authorities convicted and sentenced at least seven human rights campaigners on similar grounds, according to HRW.

There are currently 175 activists in jail in the country, according to The 88 Project, a Vietnam-focused human rights organisation.

The country ranks 174th out of 180 countries in RSF's world press freedom index.

The government has also waged a broader crackdown on corruption in recent years which has seen numerous officials and business leaders sacked or jailed.

AFP

Journalist Nguyen Vu Binh from a Nov. 2, 2020 post on his Facebook page.

Vietnam jails journalist for seven years on 'propaganda' charge