Pham Viet Dao Shouldn’t Become Next Victim of Political Trial
(New York, March 18, 2014) – All charges against the blogger Pham Viet Dao, 62, should be dropped, and he should be released immediately and unconditionally, Human Rights Watch said today.
Pham Viet Dao, 62, was arrested on June 13, 2013, in Hanoi, for allegedly violating Vietnam penal code article 258, which provides for up to seven years in prison for “abusing democratic freedoms.” He is scheduled to be tried in the People’s Court of Hanoi municipality on March 19, 2014. His trial will be the third of Internet activists arrested in mid-2013.
“The Vietnamese authorities are shaming themselves before domestic and international public opinion by staging yet another political trial of a peaceful critic,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Pham Viet Dao’s only crime has been to use the Internet to voice opinions shared by many Vietnamese, outside and inside government.”
Pham Viet Dao is a former culture ministry official and a member of the Vietnam Writers Association. He was a prominent figure in Vietnam’s social media because of his critiques of Vietnam’s one-party system and criticism of senior officials. The government blocked access to his website after his arrest.
Pham Viet Dao’s arrest followed a declaration by Information and Communication Minister Nguyen Bac Son that, “Recently, opportunist elements in the country and the overseas hostile forces have abused the Internet to spread information that sabotaged the country, distorted the policy of our Party and state.”
Read more: http://www.hrw.org/node/123824
