Vietnam dissident loses appeal against jail term

 

Apr 16, 2010

HANOI (AFP) – A prominent Vietnamese writer and dissident Friday lost her appeal against a jail sentence on assault charges she says were trumped up.

Tran Khai Thanh Thuy, born in 1960, was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison in February on the assault charge which she says was fabricated.

Her husband, Do Ba Tan, who was tried on the same charge alongside her and received a two-year suspended sentence, appeared with her Friday. His sentence was also upheld.

Their lawyer Tran Vu Hai told the court the couple's arrest and the subsequent inquiry had not followed the rules, and that witness statements against them were unreliable.

The couple both accused investigators of trying to force them to sign statements they said were full of inventions. They both rejected the accusations against them and said they themselves had been beaten.

But after proceedings lasting less than four hours, the court dismissed their arguments as "without foundation".

At the opening of Friday's hearing, Thuy again protested her innocence.

"I am a victim, I'm not a defendant," she said before being ordered to remain silent and temporarily taken out of the courtroom.

Foreign media were barred from the courtroom itself but allowed to follow proceedings on closed-circuit television in a separate room. Diplomats were refused any access to the court.

As the verdict was announced and Thuy cried out "I protest", the television feed was cut.

Thuy and Tan were accused of using a motorcycle helmet, a brick and a stick to beat two men during a parking dispute in Hanoi on October 8.

After Thuy's arrest in October, the US embassy said it was concerned she "was beaten and arrested" after she publicly expressed support for a group of pro-democracy activists.

The six Vietnamese in the group were tried and convicted in October for "propaganda against the state" related to the hanging of democracy banners and other calls for political reform.

Thuy is an honorary member of English PEN, a London-based charity working to promote literature and human rights. She is the author of numerous novels and political essays and also wrote a blog.

Human Rights Watch in 2007 named Thuy a winner of its Hellman/Hammett award for writers who have been targets of political persecution.

 

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