[huridocs-tech] Vietnam: Release Imprisoned Cyber-Dissident

Vietnam: Release Imprisoned Cyber-Dissident

(New York, May 5, 2004)—The Vietnamese authorities should immediately
release Nguyen Vu Binh, a journalist who was imprisoned after he
criticized the government in an article distributed over the Internet,
Human Rights Watch said. An appeals court trial in Hanoi today upheld
Binh's seven-year prison sentence on charges of espionage.

"Nguyen Vu Binh should never have been imprisoned in the first place,"
said Dinah PoKempner, General Counsel at Human Rights Watch. "The fact
that this appeal was rejected and a journalist remains behind bars for
peaceful expression of his views highlights once again Vietnam's
intolerance of dissent."

On December 31, Nguyen Vu Binh, 35, was sentenced to seven years'
imprisonment and three years' house arrest on charges of espionage under
Article 80 of Vietnam's Criminal Law. The case against him included
slandering the Vietnamese state, a charge related to written testimony he
provided to the U.S. Congress in July 2002 regarding human rights abuses
in Vietnam. Binh was also targeted for his criticism of a controversial
border treaty with China in an article distributed on the Internet in
August 2002.  He was arrested and jailed in September 2002.

Binh, who in 2002 received the prestigious Hellmann/Hammett writers' award
for writers who have been victims of political persecution, was a
journalist at the official Communist Party of Vietnam's journal, Communist
Review (Tap Chi Cong San) for almost 10 years. In December 2000 he
resigned from his post to attempt to form an independent political party.
He was also one of several dissidents who attempted to form an
Anti-Corruption Association in 2001.

Vietnam's Constitution and the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, to which Vietnam is a state party, grant citizens the
right to exercise freedom of expression, assembly and association.


========== HURIDOCS-Tech listserv ==========
Send mail intended for the list to <huridocs-tech@hrea.org>.
Archives of the list can be found at:
http://www.hrea.org/lists/huridocs-tech/markup/maillist.php
To subscribe to the list, send a message to <majordomo@hrea.org>,
with the following text in the message: subscribe huridocs-tech
To unsubscribe from the list, send a message to <majordomo@hrea.org>,
with the following text in the message: unsubscribe huridocs-tech
If you have problems (un)subscribing, contact <owner-huridocs-tech@hrea.org>.