By Luke
Hunt
The
Diplomat Blogs
January
11, 2013
The
Vietnamese government has jailed 14 people for terms of three to 13 years for ‘plotting to overthrow the state,’ outraging
human rights groups who say all were simply social justice campaigners and
citizen journalists.
Most
were Roman Catholics with links to Viet Tan, or the Vietnam Reform Party, a
U.S.-based organization outlawed by Hanoi as a militant group. Charges also
included the spreading of anti-state propaganda.
New
York-based Human Rights Watch said the defendants and alleged ringleader Ho Duc
Hoa were imprisoned for exercising their rights in activities which should
never have been criminalized. Meanwhile, the U.S. embassy in Hanoi issued a
statement criticizing the sentences and also saying the 12 men and 2 women were
exercising their right to freedom of expression.
Nearly
all were bloggers or students.
Viet
Tan rejected the allegations and the
court’s verdict saying: “The trial held in the city of Vinh, central
Vietnam, took place in a climate of political repression even though the
proceedings were billed by officials as being open.”
“Authorities
mobilized hundreds of uniformed and plainclothes security police to block
supporters and relatives of the defendants from gathering outside the court.
“Dozens
of supporters — including elderly women and Catholic clergy — were physically
attacked by police and temporarily detained,” it said. “Viet Tan rejects the
fabrications peddled by the communist court to rationalize the ‘subversion’
charges.”
Verifying
claims in Vietnam is not easy and often fraught with problems. It remains a
country where the authorities hide the embarrassing at all costs and dissent is
not tolerated. Vietnam is also facing an economic paralysis brought on by central
government policies — and higher unemployment and lower standards of living
will only raise the volume for the government’s critics.
Ordinary
Vietnamese increasingly rely on bloggers for information
that the heavily censored and sanitized local press are unable to deliver on.
Last
month an appeals court upheld a 12 and 10 year sentence meted out to two
prominent bloggers jailed in September, which were also “anti-state propaganda”
charges.
These
were not the first to be
arrested under section 88 of the criminal code in regards to propaganda.
“These
convictions, along with the detention of human rights lawyer and blogger Le
Quoc Quan since December 27, 2012 and the upholding of sentences against
bloggers Nguyen Van Hai — also known as Dieu Cay — Ta Phong Tan, and Phan Thanh
Hai, are part of a disturbing human rights trend in Vietnam,” the U.S. embassy statement said.
In
calling for their release the U.S. also noted their treatment appeared to be
inconsistent with Vietnam’s obligations under the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights, as well as the provisions of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights relating to freedom of expression and due process
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