Vietnam arrests banned book publisher's distributor
Liberal Publishing House suspects Nguyen Bao Tien has been illegally detained
for 18 months
UCA News reporter, Hanoi
May 07, 2021
The Public Security Department in Vietnam’s Phu Yen province arrested Nguyen Bao
Tien on May 5 for restoring and spreading anti-state material.
State-run Phap Luat newspaper said Tien, 35, from the province’s capital
of Tuy Hoa, had been caught distributing books published by the banned
independent Liberal Publishing House.
From August to October 2019, Tien received 68 packages of books with content
defaming government policies and inciting people to fight against the communist
government, the newspaper said. Some 24 packages of them were distributed to
readers, it added. On May 6,
the banned publisher, which publishes books by former prisoners and activists,
announced that it had completely lost contact with Tien since October 2019 as
his Facebook and WhatsApp accounts were blocked. “Then,
around November and December 2019, we were continuously receiving notices from
readers who were interrogated by police about police investigating a book-making
line in Phu Yen. From this information, we know that Tien was arrested and that
the civil police are seeking to blame him completely for the activities of
Liberal Publishing House,” the publisher said in a statement. The
unregistered publisher said state-run media simultaneously reported on the
arrest and prosecution of Tien 18 months after his disappearance. It said
its members and partners have been persecuted, detained and harassed since its
inception. “We urge
the international community, human rights organizations and citizens to speak up
for Tien in this illegal arrest and detention. We hope the community helps us to
reach his family to assist him in legal matters,” it said. On April
23, the People’s Court of Phu Yen sentenced Nguyen Thi Tuyet Dieu, 33, a former
journalist of a local state newspaper, to an eight-year jail term for conducting
anti-state propaganda under Article 117 of the criminal code after posting
stories and videos on Facebook and YouTube. Dieu
tackled taboo subjects such as rampant corruption among officials, environmental
pollution, human rights abuses and the government’s lack of response to Chinese
intrusions into Vietnamese waters. Vietnam
is ranked 175th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ 2021 World
Press Freedom Index.
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