The Vietnam Court convicted one of the most influential journalists in the country for two and a half years in prison on Thursday for the “abuse of democratic freedom” with a dozen posts on Facebook that criticized or called the Government.
Journalist, Truthong Huy San – Many is known for his pen name, Huy Duc – been Arrested on HanojThe capital, in June.
He was convicted under the Criminal Code for 13 articles he posted on his personal Facebook page between 2015 and 2024, which, according to the state media, “adversely influenced state interests, as well as the legal rights of organization and individuals.”
Mr. San’s family is not allowed in the courtroom.
The case of Mr. San was closely observed by international people of human rights and journalists, in part to better understand the direction of growing regional power and one-party state, which often signaled that it wants to be considered more open to the world and innovation-dok often break the organization of speech and civil society.
At least one of Mr. San’s posts that led to the charges included arguments against heavy police jobs. A screenshot of a deleted post from Mr. San last year he preserved Project 88A non-profit organization based in the US that focuses on human rights issues in Vietnam, said: “The country cannot be developed on the basis of fear.”
Until that moment, his Facebook page had about 370,000 followers.
Shawn Crispin, a senior representative of Southeast Asia for the Journalist Protection Committee, said that Mr. San “was convicted and convicted of gathering and publishing independent news, which Vietnam treats as a criminal offense.”
“The dream and all independent journalists who have been wrongly held behind the bars in Vietnam should be released immediately and unconditionally,” said Mr. Crispin.
Vietnam currently has at least 16 journalists in custody, according to CPJ Last List of Global Prison – Many of them held to post on social media, which the Government has tried to regulate strictly. Vietnam is the seventh worst prison of journalists around the world, based on CPJ, related to Iran and Eritrea.
According to the state media, Mr. San, 63, told the authorities that he did not intend to oppose the communist party or the state, but admitted that he had broken some content on the interests of the state “he said he was” very sorry “.
Mr. San grew up in a resolute revolutionary family, at a state collective farm in Central Vietnam, where he said He performed more in mathematics than in literature.
In 10th grade, he volunteered for the Vietnamese army, calling on strikes with an artillery unit during a brutal border war with China, which began in 1979.
Later, as a military journalist, he continued to cover the war in Vietnam against Kmer in Cambodia.
Starting in the late 80’s, he was known as an investigative journalist who broke corruption for the popular Ho Chi Minh City newspaper, Tuoi Tre, where he often received news with the help of his military relationships. His reporting often challenged the political culture of Vietnam during the period of fierce discussions on internal policy between conservatives and reformists.
There were more openness to different votes at the time, he said later, and in 2005 he left Vietnam to study at Maryland University on a HUBERT H. HUMPHREY FELLOWSHIPwhich connects people dealing with critical global challenges.
When he returned to Vietnam in 2006, he began a blog that became popular because of his social and political comments. The Vietnamese authorities closed it in 2010.
His achievements also included a year at Harvard University in Nieman Scholarship in 2012. While he was there, he ended up writing a book with two volumes, a “winning side”, a journalistic tour that quickly became a final account of Vietnam history and politics from the end of the 1975 war.
Officially, the book is banned in Vietnam. But it also reads widely, on the network of hard copies that have passed among friends. Mr. San said that he simply hoped that the book, as another writing, would provide a sincere account of the complex dynamics of the country.
“All he does is try to connect what happened after 1975 and explain why it happened the way that was,” Mrs. San said In the 2013 interview. “That’s all. I try to blame anyone for anything.”
In recent years, he has moved his comment to Facebook. Many of his friends, in the posts there this week, expressed gratitude that his sentence is no longer. Some have promised to cook the best homemade alcohol that can be celebrated when released.
