Vu Duc Trung  Vu Duc Trung is a Vietnamese tech executive and radio journalist who was 33 years old as of October 2014. He is a member of the Falun Gong religious movement. Beginning in April 2009, Vu Duc Trung and his brother-in-law Le Van Thanh broadcast Chinese-language short-wave radio programs on the Sound of Hope Network from their farm in the town of Thach Loi, near Hanoi. On the programs, they told Chinese listeners about Falun Gong, which was banned in China in 1999. "SOH's broadcasts into mainland China help break the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP's) jealously guarded monopoly on news and information," stated the "Epoch Times". "SOH's programming regularly discusses the CCP's history of violence and mass murder in China, human rights abuses, official corruption, protests against the regime, and Falun Gong and its ongoing persecution in China." Trung and Thanh were arrested in April 2011, prompting a protest by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). The organization charged that the Vietnamese government was doing the bidding of the Chinese Communist regime. "Beijing's reach does not stop at China's borders," said RSF spokesman Gilles Lordet. "Reporters Without Borders has learned that the Chinese government successfully pressured the Vietnamese authorities to arrest two people, Vu Duc Trung and Le Van Thanh." At first the authorities filed administrative charges against the two men, but later they upgraded the charges to criminal charges. The Vietnamese government accused Trung and Thanh of "violating international communications regulations and damaging relations between Hanoi and Beijing," said a relative of the men, Pham Thanh Trung, who maintained that the men had not discussed politics on their radio programs, only religion. A Hanoi lawyer, Tran Dinh Trien, said that the criminal charges against the men were unconstitutional and violated international human-rights covenants to which Vietnam was a signatory. He said that under Vietnamese law the two men had only committed an administrative offense that called for a fine, not a criminal offense that could justify imprisonment or confiscation of equipment. "Using a radio to help other members of Falun Gong is something forbidden in China, but not in Vietnam yet," Trien said. He also dismissed as "an illusion" the claim that the men's broadcasts would harm Vietnamese-Chinese relations. "Vietnam cannot apply the same measures that China applies regarding Falun Gong members," he said. RSF expressed concern that the arrests reflected a growth in the political influence of China over its neighbors.