(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has called on Vietnamese Justice Minister Uong Chu Luu to explain why jailed journalist and cyber-dissident Nguyen Vu Binh has still not been tried one year after his arrest. The organisation also urged the minister to identify the charges against the journalist and describe his conditions of detention. Nguyen Vu Binh was […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has called on Vietnamese Justice Minister Uong Chu Luu to explain why jailed journalist and cyber-dissident Nguyen Vu Binh has still not been tried one year after his arrest. The organisation also urged the minister to identify the charges against the journalist and describe his conditions of detention.
Nguyen Vu Binh was arrested in Hanoi on 25 September 2002, one month after posting an article on the Internet in which he criticised border agreements signed with China in 1999.
“It is inhumane to keep him in jail without trial and demonstrates the Vietnamese authorities’ scant respect for human rights,” RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard said. He called for Nguyen Vu Binh to be allowed visits from his wife and two children.
Nguyen Vu Binh wrote for the magazine section of the Communist Party newspaper “Tap Chi Cong San” (“The Communist Revue”). Since 2001, he has posted many articles on the Internet calling for political and economic reforms.
The Vietnamese government tightened its control of Internet access inside the country on 26 May 2003 by banning the reception or distribution of “anti-government” messages and setting up a special body to monitor Internet communications and prosecute violators.
The authorities are currently blocking access to nearly 2,000 websites and six people are in prison for posting allegedly subversive material online. They are Tran Khue, Nguyen Vu Binh, Pham Hong Son, Nguyen Khac Toan, Le Chi Quang and Nguyen Dan Que.
