Vietnam upholds
2-year jail term against blogger
AsiaNews/Agencies
06/26/2014
The 50 year-old Duy Nhat Truong was charged with "abusing democratic
freedoms." He had criticized the Prime Minister and the leader of the Communist
Party. Court tried to block the activist and his lawyer defensive pleading.
Hanoi against internal dissidence.
Hanoi
- A court in central Vietnam has upheld a two-year jail sentence against a
well-known dissident blogger for posting online criticism of the communist
government. Truong Duy Nhat was convicted of "abusing democratic freedoms" to
infringe upon the interests of the state in March. Lawyer Tran Vu Hai said Nhat
maintained his innocence during the appeal hearing in central Danang City that
lasted nearly two hours Thursday. "We stressed that the 12 articles did not
infringe upon the interests of the state, but instead defended the interests of
the state," Hai told The AP by telephone.
Hai
said the judges tried to stop him and his client from speaking when they went
into details of the 12 articles that were used to prosecute Nhat. The
50-year-old was arrested in May last year, a month after posting an article that
called for the resignation of Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong and Prime
Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, accusing them of being responsible for what he
described as the country's "political chaos," slumping economy and their failure
to curb rampant corruption.
An active voice within the national media landscape since 2011, he is famous for
having given birth to a popular blog titled "A Different Viewpoint." His
writings offer a different view than the official press, controlled by the
authorities and he is accused of fomenting "debates marked by hatred." Since his
arrest his blog has been blocked by authorities.
In April 2013, he published an article calling on the Vietnamese leadership to
resign en masse, because "the time has come for the appointment of a new prime
minister and a new party secretary." He called for the radical change to help
solve the nation's economic and political crisis, the result of years of bad
governance.
For the past several years, Vietnam has seen a harsh campaign by the government
against dissidents, bloggers, religious leaders (including Buddhists), Catholic
activists or entire communities. Last year for example, media and government
conducted a smear campaign in the Diocese of Vinh targeting
the local bishop and faithful. The government's crackdown has also touched
people whose only guilt is that of claiming the right to religious freedom and
respect for citizens' civil rights. In 2013 alone, Vietnamese authorities
arrested dozens of activists for crimes "against the state," based on a rule
that human rights groups have branded as too "generic" and "vague".