[huridocs-tech] Vietnam: Sixth cyber-dissident jailed in worst crack-down since 2002

Press release RSF
15 May 2007

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said it was stunned by a five-year jail
sentence handed down today to pro-democracy activist Tran Quoc Hien, the
sixth such sentence in a week.

The 42-year-old member of the democratic movement "bloc 8406" and
spokesman for the United Workers-Farmers Organization (UWFO) was sentenced
for "spreading anti-government propaganda" online and "endangering state
security", at the end of a four-hour trial. He had been arrested in
January 2007.

Voicing deep concern about the crackdown, the worldwide press freedom
organisation said: "It is the worst series of arrests and sentences since
2002. The Vietnamese government is playing games with the international
community. It pretended for several months to be ready to open up, with
the aim of easing its membership of the World Trade Organisation (WTO),
but it is now obvious it was a smokescreen."

"Vietnam is one of the most authoritarian and repressive countries in the
world, a country where the simple fact of publicly calling for democratic
reform leads to prison. It is time that Europe, the United States and all
democratic governments got tougher with the Vietnamese authorities", the
organisation said.

Five other pro-democracy activists have been tried over the last five
days. Huynh Nguyen Dao, Nguyen Bac Truyen and Le Nguyen Sang were
respectively sentenced, on 10 May 2007, to three four and five years in
jail. The following day, the lawyers Nguyen Van Dai and Le Thi Cong Nhan
were sentenced to five and four years in prison.

Six cyber-dissidents were arrested between January and September 2002: Le
Chi Quang, Pham Hong Son, Pham Que Duong, Tran Khue, Nguyen Vu Binh and
Nguyen Khac Toan. They were sentenced to jail terms of up to 12 years in
prison. Of these, only Nguyen Vu Binh is still behind bars. The others
were released in the month before Vietnam became a member of the WTO, in
November 2006.





================== HURIDOCS-Tech listserv ===================== 
Send mail intended for the list to <        >. 
Archives of the list can be found at: 
http://www.hrea.org/lists/huridocs-tech/markup/maillist.php