Vietnamese Police Arrest Prominent Anti-China Blogger
2014-12-01
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Vietnamese blogger Hong Le Tho in an undated photo.
(Photo courtesy of nguyentandung.org.)
Vietnamese authorities have arrested an anti-China blogger under an ambiguous law in the latest crackdown on critics in the bustling social media scene in the one-party communist state.
Police in Ho Chi Minh City searched the home of 65-year-old Hong Le Tho, who had previously lived in Japan, and arrested him on Saturday.
They detained him for violating Article 258 of the Penal Code, which pertains to “abusing freedom and democracy to infringe upon the interests of the state.”
Authorities often have cited Article 258 to make arbitrary arrests of bloggers, activists and lawyers.
The Ministry of Public Security said Saturday on its website that it had detained Tho for “posting online articles with bad content and false information that discredit and create distrust among people about state agencies, social agencies and citizens,” according to reports.
Many of his posts have been critical of China, Vietnam’s giant neighbor which has been accused by Hanoi of territorial encroachment and political bullying over their overlapping claims to island chains in the South China Sea.
Freelance journalist Pham Chi Dung, who is acquainted with Tho, told RFA’s Vietnamese Service that Tho was among those who had raised the issue in Vietnam of “escaping China’s orbit’ – or Thoat Trung in Vietnamese.
Vietnam Rights Conference Goes Ahead Despite Police Harassment
2014-11-26
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Vietnamese rights activists and foreign diplomats went ahead with a planned human rights conference in Hanoi on Wednesday, defying efforts by police to harass and intimidate event organizers, sources said. A policeman, flanked by local militia members, guards the outside of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court, Aug. 10, 2011.
The conference, titled “U.N. Protection Mechanisms for Human Rights Defenders in Vietnam,” was held at the Thai Ha church in Vietnam’s capital Hanoi, and was attended by over 70 members of civil society groups, together with representatives of the United Nations and embassies of Australia, the U.S., the UK, and the European Union.
After being warned by police that the rare gathering was considered “illegal” by authorities, event organizer Nguyen Quang A was repeatedly blocked in his efforts to arrive at the church, he told RFA’s Vietnamese Service on Wednesday.
Vietnamese Journalist Brutally Beaten by Policemen in Ambush
2014-11-25
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A freelance journalist in authoritarian Vietnam has narrowly escaped death after being beaten unconscious by eight policemen near Ho Chi Minh City, an international media watchdog and his wife said on Tuesday. The battered face of Truong Minh Duc a few days after he was attacked near Ho Chi Minh City, Nov. 2, 2014.
Photo courtesy of Truong Minh Duc's wife
Truong Minh Duc was ambushed by the policemen in Thu Dau Mot, a town 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Ho Chi Minh City in southern Vietnam and then beaten after trying unsuccessfully to flee into a nearby cafeteria, Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said in a report.
The group said it was “appalled by the brutality of the attack.”
It quoted witnesses as saying that the police continued to hit Duc repeatedly with a helmet, even after he lost consciousness.
The motive of the attack on Nov. 2 was unclear.
Duc’s wife Thanh told RFA’s Vietnamese Service that her husband was discharged after nearly a week of treatment at the Hoan My Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City.
“He is back home after being in the hospital for six days. He is now relatively stable but still has to take medicine and go to revisit [doctors] because it hurts again if he stops taking the medicine,” she said.
Doubts Raised Over Vietnamese Leadership Confidence Vote
2014-11-17
(R to L) Vietnam's President Truong Tan Sang, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, Communist Party Secretary General Nguyen Phu Trong and Nguyen Sinh Hung, president of the National Assembly, cast their ballots during a confidence vote at the National Assembly in Hanoi, Nov. 15, 2014.
Dung received a “high confidence” vote of 64.4 percent in Saturday’s vote in the National Assembly, while another 19.3 percent of MPs cast votes showing “confidence” and 13.7 percent “low confidence” in his performance.
Sang meanwhile garnered “high confidence” votes from 76.5 percent of the 485 MPs voting, and a “confidence” vote of 17 percent, with scores for both men showing improvement over votes taken in a confidence poll last year, the country’s first under communist rule.
However, no option was allowed for votes of “no confidence” that could be seen as challenging control by Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party, sources said
