Published on Tuesday 18 September 2012
Reporters Without Borders is appalled by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung’s directive calling on the authorities to impose “serious punishments” on those responsible for three popular anti-corruption blogs that he described as “slanderous.”
The organization also deplores the arrest of the wife of the jailed journalist and blogger Dieu Cay, the sister of the jailed blogger Ta Phong Tan, and the Catholic priest Anton Le Ngoc Thanh by plain-clothes police during a protest yesterday in the southern city of Bac Lieu. Accused of causing a traffic accident, they were held for several hours.
“We condemn the increase in repression in Vietnam, which we thought had already reached its peak, and the harassment of the families of dissidents,” Reporters Without Borders said. “In particular, we deplore the two-fold method of coercion consisting of reprisals against dissidents themselves together with surreptitious harassment and violent intimidation of their relatives and supporters.”
The three people arrested yesterday in Bac Lieu were treated violently by the police before being released. Ta Phong Tan’s sister, in particular, was slapped and punched several times and her face was swollen and bruised when they emerged from the police station.
Read more: http://en.rsf.org/vietnam-dissidents-and-families-targeted-18-09-2012,43397.html?dolist=ok/vietnam-dissidents-and-families-targeted-18-09-2012,43397.html
