Committee to Protect Journalists, Jan 9, 2013
Bangkok, January 9, 2013–At least five independent bloggers were sentenced today to harsh jail terms in Vietnam, according to local and international news reports. The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns this move and calls on Vietnamese authorities to reverse the charges on appeal and release the bloggers.
In a two-day trial, a court in the city of Vinh convicted and sentenced the bloggers on charges of participating in “activities aimed at overthrowing the people’s administration” and “undermining of national unity” and of participating in “propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” news reports said. CPJ research shows that many authoritarian countries resort to such vague state-security charges to justify punishing journalists. Political activists were also convicted on the same charges and sentenced, the reports said. All of the individuals received between three and 13 years in prison, news reports said.
Read more: https://www.cpj.org/2013/01/bloggers-imprisoned-in-mass-sentencing-in-vietnam.php
