(WAN/IFEX) – The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) has appealed to Vietnamese President Tran Duc Luong to release imprisoned journalist and academic Doan Viet Hoat when he grants amnesty to selected prisoners on Vietnam’s National Day. **For further background to case, see IFEX alerts of 4 November and 29 January 1997; 4 March 1996; and […]
(WAN/IFEX) – The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) has appealed to
Vietnamese President Tran Duc Luong to release imprisoned journalist and
academic Doan Viet Hoat when he grants amnesty to selected prisoners on
Vietnam’s National Day.
**For further background to case, see IFEX alerts of 4 November and 29
January 1997; 4 March 1996; and others**
Professor Hoat is currently serving a 15-year jail sentence for his work
with the pro-democracy newsletter “Dien Dan Tu Do” (Freedom Forum). He has
spent much of the past three decades in prison.
According to reports, Vietnam is to announce on 15 August the names of
prisoners to be granted amnesty on the country’s National Day, 2 September.
Bengt Braun, the WAN President, appealed to Vietnam to include Professor
Hoat on the list as his “only crime has been to express his opinions.”
“We understand that among those eligible for early release are prisoners who
have served one-third of their sentence, as has Doan Viet Hoat,” Mr Braun
said. The reports also said the President would consider “family
circumstances” in making his decisions, and Mr Braun wrote: “We respectfully
remind you that Doan Viet Hoat has been married for 32 years, yet has lived
with his wife for only nine and a half years and is a virtual stranger to
his three children.”
Professor Hoat is the laureate of WAN’s 1998 Golden Pen of Freedom, awarded
for outstanding contributions to the struggle for a free press.
