Vietnam

Vietnamese bloggers Le Thanh Tung and Dinh Dang Dinh have been sentenced to five and six-year jail terms respectively after advocating for democracy and pluralism.

A jailed blogger’s mother died after setting fire to herself to protest her daughter’s trial.

The five bloggers suffered cuts from broken glass after the assailants smashed the window of their vehicle.

The US secretary of state should press Vietnam to tear down its web firewall and release imprisoned bloggers, said Human Rights Watch.

According to information received by SEAPA, Huynh Thuc Vy was arrested after she and her husband were interrogated by police in connection with their participation in a protest.

The implementation of a proposed decree will greatly obstruct the right to freedom of expression by prohibiting online anonymity and placing the duty on service providers to enforce the decree regulations, ARTICLE 19 notes.

The government is cracking down heavily on activists who have been exposing the gross inefficiencies in the working of the government, reports ARTICLE 19.

Ho Thi Bich Khuong was convicted in 2011 for giving allegedly critical interviews to the foreign media, and for documents that were considered to oppose the state.

The four were arrested for allegedly distributing pro-democracy leaflets and are accused of conducting propaganda against the state.

Nguyen Ngoc Nam and Han Phi Long, both reporters with the official Radio Voice of Vietnam, were severely kicked and beaten while covering the forced eviction of around 1,000 villagers from their farmlands.

Vietnam should be urged to release all political prisoners and to end restrictions on the freedoms of expression, association, peaceful assembly, belief, and religion when the two sides meet for their annual bilateral human rights dialogue, Human Rights Watch said.

Reporters Without Borders Press release April 13, 2012 VIETNAM Draft decree would end online anonymity, force foreign Internet firms to censor Reporters Without Borders calls on the Vietnamese authorities to abandon plans for a decree that would increase online censorship to an utterly unacceptable level and exacerbate the already very disturbing situation for freedom of […]

Nguyen Van Hai, Phan Thanh Hai, and Ta Phong Tan were charged with anti-government propaganda concerning a total of 421 articles they had posted on their blogs that “denigrated the state”.

SEAPA joined the Media Legal Defence Initiative and other human rights organisations in calling for the release of five bloggers arbitrarily detained for more than seven months.

Pham Minh Hoang, arrested in August 2010, was released on 13 January 2012.

In its first report on the freedom to publish conditions in Vietnam, IPA concludes that the screening of books is a complex, opaque, at time irrational, and highly bureaucratic process.