(WiPC/IFEX) – The WiPC of International PEN protests the three-year prison sentence handed down to pastor, lawyer and dissident Internet writer Nguyen Hong Quang on 12 November 2004. According to PEN’s information, Nguyen Hong Quang, a dissident writer, lawyer and general secretary of the banned Vietnamese Mennonite Church, was arrested on 8 June for allegedly […]
(WiPC/IFEX) – The WiPC of International PEN protests the three-year prison sentence handed down to pastor, lawyer and dissident Internet writer Nguyen Hong Quang on 12 November 2004.
According to PEN’s information, Nguyen Hong Quang, a dissident writer, lawyer and general secretary of the banned Vietnamese Mennonite Church, was arrested on 8 June for allegedly “instigating others to obstruct persons carrying out official duties”, after police searched his house in Ho Chi Minh City. Security agents also confiscated computer equipment and numerous documents, which included his legal files on human rights cases he was working on.
The charges stem from an altercation on 2 March between Nguyen Hong Quang, several of his associates at the Mennonite church, and two plainclothes police officers who the Mennonites allege were harassing church workers at the church where Nguyen Hong Quang lives and works. Five other Mennonite church workers were also convicted with Nguyen Hong Quang on the same charges, and received sentences ranging from nine months to two years’ imprisonment. All six were tried in a four-hour closed hearing by the People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City on 12 November.
Nguyen Hong Quang, aged 45 and a married father of three young children, has written numerous essays on human rights in Vietnam, in particular the repression of religious freedom and freedom of speech. He has also provided legal assistance to other prisoners of conscience in Vietnam, though he is banned from officially practicing as a lawyer. He is thought to have been targeted for his writings published on the Internet on the suppression of religious freedom and human rights violations in Vietnam.
