2013-05-29
A court in Vietnam’s Central Highlands on Wednesday sentenced eight ethnic minority Montagnards affiliated with an unregistered Catholic church to between three and 11 years in prison for “undermining unity” in the authoritarian state.
The Gia Lai provincial court said some of the eight had worked with a banned exile organization to establish an independent state for indigenous peoples in the Central Highlands, according to state media.
The others were accused of inciting thousands of protesters to demonstrate against their relocation from their village to make way for a power plant in 2008.
All eight—who are between 32 and 73 years old—were convicted under article 87 of the penal code, a national security provision that forbids “undermining the [national] unity policy” by “sowing division” or ethnic or religious hatred.
Read more: http://www.rfa.org/english/news/vietnam/montagnards-05292013165006.html
