Free speech groups call for release of Vietnamese blogger
4
October 2011
Organisations including
Index on Censorship, Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect
Journalists write to the Vietnamese prime minister calling for the release of
Pham Minh Hoang
Press
freedom organisations have written a joint letter to the prime minister of
Vietnam to call for the release of jailed blogger Pham Minh Hoang.
The letter to Nguyen Tan Dung, published
on the Index on Censorship website, was also signed by nine other bodies
including Reporters Without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
and PEN International.
Hoang, who has dual French-Vietnamese citizenship, was sentenced to three years
in prison and a further three years of house arrest in August, after a judge
ruled that his articles "blackened the image of the country", according to the
letter.
As well as a well-known blogger, Hoang is also a lecturer in applied mathematics
at the Ho Chi Minh City Polytechnic Institute and an activist who has worked to
promote human rights.
"We would like to remind the Government of Vietnam that Mr Hoang’s blogging
activities, as well as his activism, are guaranteed by the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, and the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Vietnam is a
party to, as well as by Articles 35, 50, 53, and 69 of the Vietnamese
Constitution," the organisations said in the letter.
"We call on Vietnamese authorities to recognize Mr. Hoang’s right to expression,
and to lift any charges or convictions related to his protected expressive
activities, and — with these charges lifted — to ensure his release."
The letter to the Vietnamese prime minister comes as the CPJ called on the
government to "immediately and unconditionally" release all of the journalists
detained in the country.
According to the press freedom group in the past six months at least nine
journalists, most working largely online, have been jailed.
"With these arrests, Vietnam now ranks among the worst jailers of journalists in
the world," Bob Dietz, CPJ's Asia program director, said
in a report.
"The crackdown under way underscores the Communist Party government's enduring
fear of an independent press scrutinizing its record, policies, and
personalities. The national security-related charges used to imprison these
journalists are bogus across the board."