Eight Vietnamese bloggers received jail sentences last week on charges of anti-government propaganda under article 88 of the criminal code, Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Vu Hung was sentenced to three years in prison in Hanoi on October 7. Pham Von Troi got a four-year sentence the next day.
The six other bloggers were given jail sentences on the same charges in Haiphong on October 7. Nguyen Xuan Nghia (a writer) got six years. Nguyen Van Tinh and Nguyen Manh Son got three and a half years. Nguyen Van Tuc got four years. Ngo Quynh got three years and Nguyen Kim Nhan got two years.
They will all also have to serve varying periods of house arrest after their release from prison. Their trial lasted just a few hours.
“If Vietnam’s courts treat criticism of the government and calls for respect of human rights as national security violations and as defamatory propaganda, then these convictions are manifestly violations of free expression,” Paris-based RSF said.
“Criticising government policies and calling for democracy do not threaten Vietnam’s national security,” it added. “We urge the authorities to retry these cases while respecting defence rights, which were blithely violated in these trials.”
Article 88 of the criminal code forbids all “propaganda against the Communist system of government” as well as “slanderous allegations undermining national security, the social order and the people’s trust in the Party.”
In their offending posts, the bloggers had called for more political pluralism and democracy and respect for human rights. They also accused the Vietnamese authorities of failing to stand up to China’s territorial claims over the Paracel and Spratly Islands in the South China Sea because they were afraid offending Beijing.
The trial judges took the position that criticism of human rights violations and lack of democracy necessarily constitute article 88 violations as democracy and respect for human rights already exist in Vietnam.
President Nguyen Minh Triet tried to convince the Vietnamese people and the rest of the world of this when he addressed the UN General Assembly in New York on September 25. Originally scheduled to take place the day before his address, these trials were postponed at the last minute.
The Socialist Republic of Vietnam is one of the 12 countries that RSF has identified as RSF press freedom index.
