State Media An appeals court in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City on Friday upheld harsh prison terms handed down last year to four activists convicted of planning protests on Vietnam’s National Day on Sept. 2, 2018. Arrested in September 2018, the four were part of a group of eight named by police as members of the Hien Phap (Constitution) Group, a network of activists formed on June 16, 2017 to call for the rights to freedom of speech and assembly promised under Article 25 of Vietnam’s Constitution. All eight were convicted of “disturbing security” under Article 118 of Vietnam’s 2015 Penal Code, and were sentenced on July 31, 2020 to prison terms ranging from two years and six months to eight years in a trial from which family members were barred.