Vietnam

A special Reporters Without Borders report examines the methods that Vietnam uses to censor the media and harass bloggers and cyber-dissidents.

A people’s court in south-central Vietnam sentenced 65-year-old dissident activist Ngo Hao to 15 years in prison on a charge of trying to overthrow the government.

An online censorship law known as Decree 72 went into effect in Vietnam; it bans bloggers and users of social media from quoting, gathering, or summarising information from press organisations or government websites.

An appeal court in southern Vietnam reduced blogger Dinh Nguyen Kha’s sentence to four years in prison, and reduced fellow blogger Nguyen Phuong Uyen’s sentence to a suspended sentence of three years in prison.

Reporters Without Borders questions the arrest of investigative reporter Vo Thanh Tung for alleged corruption, a subject he specialises in covering; there are several reasons for thinking the award-winning journalist was set up.

Ten rights organisations have called on President Obama to raise the issue of ailing blogger Nguyen Van Hai (aka Dieu Cay), on hunger strike to protest jail conditions, when he meets the Vietnamese President on 25 July 2013.

Nineteen human rights organisations have written to U.S. President Barack Obama to raise the issue of the detention of human rights defender and blogger Mr Le Quoc Quan when President Truong Tan Sang of Vietnam meets Obama on 25 July 2013.

The restrictions outlined in a news decree aim to make global Internet companies like Google, Facebook, and others complicit in Vietnam’s escalating crackdown on Internet freedoms, CPJ warns.

A joint submission to the UN UPR process for Vietnam focuses on the country’s compliance with its international human rights obligations in respect to freedom of expression.

The Vietnamese government should unconditionally release recently arrested bloggers and end physical attacks on critics; furthermore, Vietnam’s donors and trading partners are urged to publicly call on the government to end the use of the criminal law against peaceful activists.

Vietnamese police in Hanoi arrested a blogger on accusations of anti-state activity; Pham Viet Dao reportedly wrote blogs that were critical of government officials and policies.

Public security ministry officials arrested Truong Duy Nhat, one of Vietnam’s most influential bloggers, on a charge of “abusing democratic freedoms”.

A Vietnamese court upheld the convictions of eight activists, reducing the sentences of four; they were arrested in 2011 for critical comments.

As eight Vietnamese human rights activists are appealing their convictions, a coalition of organisations has questioned the legitimacy of the trial and condemned the reported ill treatment of the activists since they have been in detention.

On 5 May, bloggers and netizens who took part in “picnics to discuss human rights” in public places in several Vietnamese cities were violently attacked by police and many were briefly detained.

Vietnamese writer and activist Nguyen Huu Cau, 67, is reportedly seriously ill and denied adequate medical care in the prison camp where he is serving a life-time sentence for his critical writings.