Award-winning Vietnam writer to be tried: lawyer

 

HANOI – AFP – 01/26/2010 - An award-winning Vietnamese writer is to be tried on Friday for "propaganda against the state", her lawyer said, in the latest case of a crackdown on democracy activists in the communist nation.

Pham Thanh Nghien's hearing will take place in the northern port city of Haiphong, her lawyer Tran Vu Hai told AFP.

Rights activists say the charge, which is punishable by a jail term, criminalises peaceful dissent.

Hai said she is accused in connection with a request she made to authorities in 2008 for a demonstration against inflation.

Nghien, in her early 30s, is further accused of staging a sit-in at her house with a banner to protest Vietnam's handling of maritime relations with China, and of posting a picture of her protest on the Internet, he said.

The United States-based Human Rights Watch last year named Nghien as one of 37 writers from 19 countries to receive its Hellman/Hammett award for writers who have been targets of political persecution.

Nghien was arrested in late 2008, about the same time as nine other dissidents also charged with propaganda against the state. Appeals court last week upheld jail terms against all nine.

Tran Khai Thanh Thuy, a writer who the US embassy said was "beaten and arrested" after publicly expressing support for those activists, will also be tried on Friday charged with intentionally injuring or harming the health of a person, a family member said.

Last week a court in Ho Chi Minh City jailed four democracy activists for trying to overthrow the regime in a case which the European Union delegation to Vietnam called "a major and regrettable step backwards". The US and Britain also voiced concern.

Human Rights Watch said their case highlighted a climate of increasingly harsh political repression in the country.

Another democracy activist, Nguyen Ba Dang, 44, was arrested in Hai Duong province and his computer seized last Friday, his wife said.

 

Return to main page