Vietnam

Following an unprecedented crackdown by Vietnam’s government, a new coalition is looking to protect free expression in that country by saying: #StopTheCrackdownVN.

Seven bloggers and citizen-journalists have been arrested in recent weeks and two have been given long jail terms.

Vietnamese activist Trần Thị Nga was sentenced to nine years in prison and five years of house arrest for “conducting propaganda against the State.”

ARTICLE 19 condemns the announcement that reporters in Vietnam will be barred from the majority of meetings of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee.

Professor Phạm Minh Hoàng learned earlier this month that Vietnam’s president had decided to take away his citizenship. The 61-year-old, who holds dual French-Vietnamese citizenship, is a prominent blogger who writes about human rights, social justice, and corruption in Vietnam.

PEN International calls on the Vietnamese authorities to drop all charges against blogger and government critic Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, also known by her pen name Me Nam (‘Mother Mushroom’), ahead of her trial, which is expected to take place on 29 June 2017.

A new Human Rights Watch report highlights 36 incidents in which unknown men in civilian clothes beat rights campaigners and bloggers between January 2015 and April 2017, often resulting in serious injuries.

The Vietnamese government announced on its official Facebook page that bloggers Phan Kim Khanh and Bui Hieu Vo had been detained on charges of “propagandizing against the state,” which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

Vietnamese journalist granted early release from 13-year sentence, but at a very high price.

Following the arrests of a videographer and a blogger, it’s becoming clearly obvious that, to Vietnam’s government, the line between criminals and journalists is still a murky one.

Vietnamese blogger Ho Van Hai had recently reported on an environmental disaster, caused by a steel factory, that has sparked a series of protests against the government’s handling of the crisis.

A prominent independent blogger, popularly known by her pen name Me Nam (Mother Mushroom), was arrested while trying to visit an imprisoned political activist in the central coastal town of Nha Trang, Vietnam.

Vietnamese authorities should immediately free the blogger Nguyen Dinh Ngoc and all other peaceful critics imprisoned for criticising the government, the ruling Vietnam Communist Party, or their policies, Human Rights Watch said.

Police arrested reporter Chu Manh Son and citizen journalist Truong Minh Tam, as they reported on a mysterious ecological disaster that has seen tons of fish wash up on the shores of Vietnam’s central coastal region.

In a one-day trial, Hanoi’s People’s Court sentenced Nguyen Huu Vinh, founder of the news website and aggregator Ba Sam, and Nguyen Thi Minh Thuy, his editorial assistant, to five and three years respectively under article 258 of the Penal Code.

RSF is shocked by the severe beating that citizen-journalist and cyber-activist Nguyen Van Dai received from plainclothes policemen in the northern province of Nghe An on 6 December 2015, shortly after he participated in a discussion about human rights in Vietnam and the 2013 constitution.