Blogger Nguyen Huu Vinh and his assistant i courtroom on March 23, 2016 (Photo courtesy: AP)
David Brown, March 25, 2016
The Hanoi People’s Court on March 23 sentenced a prominent independent blogger, Nguyễn Hữu Vinh (pen name Anh Ba Sam or “Brother Gossip” to five years’ imprisonment on charges of “misusing democratic freedom to encroach on State interests [and] the legitimate rights of groups and individuals” according to the Vietnamese Criminal Code.
Vinh’s administrative assistant, Nguyễn Minh Thúy, who steadfastly refused to turn state’s evidence again him, drew a three year term.
The verdicts provide the first substantial indication of how Vietnam’s new leaders may manage civil rights cases. The short answer seems to to be: much the same as their predecessors.
Vinh and Thuy had already been detained under investigation for 20 months when, in January, the Hanoi high court announced that Vinh and Thuy would be tried on the eve of the Vietnam Communist Party’s Twelfth Congress. Within hours, a second notice announced their trial’s postponement.
The party meetings appointed a new slate of leaders after rejecting the bid of the two-term prime minister, Nguyen Tan Dung, to replace Nguyen Phu Trong as Vietnam’s top Communist official.
On party’s Politburo (executive committee) announced on January 28, there is a striking increase in the number of veteran party apparatchiks and senior police officers.
Ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact is pending in its 12 signatory nations. The pact is highly controversial in several capitals, and opponents have expressed doubt that Vietnam in particular would live up to civil rights commitments contained in what supporters herald as a “high-standard, rules-based free-trade agreement.”
Vietnam is a one-party socialist republic. All its institutions, including the courts, are supervised by the Communist Party. Judges and procurators are selected from party membership. While the judiciary is nominally accountable to the National Assembly, theoretically the highest institution of government power in the country, it is the party that holds sway.
Because the Anh Ba Sam blog has sustained a reputation for responsible journalism in an online environment characterised by lively but typically unaccountable and often reckless political commentary, the trial was closely watched in Vietnam.
“Anh Ba Sàm” first went online in 2007 with two sorts of fare: an objective digest of Western reportage on newsworthy events in and about Vietnam and thoughtful commentary by a distinguished stable of contributors. Colleagues of Vinh and Thuy have continued to publish the blog despite their incarceration. The blog has been hacked several times by unknown assailants.
In the second half of 2015, as leaks on the Communist Party leadership contest proliferated, Anh Ba Sam’s page views averaged over 100,000 daily. They spiked to 258,000 one day on the eve of the party congress.
Although it was the Anh Ba Sam blog that made him locally famous, the indictment against Vinh and Thuy published in January was based on unsigned posts allegedly made to two other blogs established in 2013, Dân Quyền (Peoples Rights) and Chép sừ Việt (Notes on Vietnamese Events). The indictment alleged that the two conspired to “slander and distort the truth about Vietnam.”
The arrest of Vinh and Thuy in May 2014 came in the context of acute tension between Vietnam and China after Beijing moved its first deep-water drilling rig into the disputed South China Sea and prohibited all marine vessels entering into a one mile radius of the Haiyang Shiyou 981′s drilling work. Calls for an anti-China protest rally were made here and there in the Vietnamese blogosphere.
Some Vietnamese dissidents regarded the bloggers’ arrest as evidence that the Vietnamese government was “yielding submission” to its Chinese counterpart by detaining a famous “anticommunist China” blogger.
Article 258 of the Vietnamese Constitution describes a crime of “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the State.” It has frequently been used to imprison bloggers and democracy activists in Vietnam in the recent years.
ABS was first hacked in November 2010 by unknown assailants, and again in June 2011. The damage was repaired and the blog soon went back on line. Three years ago, on March 13, 2013, ABS was hacked again. This time its attackers hijacked the files and changed all the passwords. Its US-based managing editor, Dinh Ngoc Thu, was subsequently the object of a scurrilous ad feminem attack cobbled together from photos taken out of context from her personal laptop files.
The 2013 attack came amid a lively debate on the Ba Sam blog about how the Vietnamese Constitution ought to be revised. Although the National Assembly called for the people to express their ideas, the final text, enacted late in 2013, “failed to address popular aspirations for change and reform, according to Human Rights Watch, which called on the country’s donors and development partners to redouble their efforts to press for constitutional and legal reforms to protect basic rights, such as freedom of expression and association.
Nonetheless, taking the legislature at its word, commentaries posted on Anh Ba Sam tilted sharply toward freeing the current constitution’s guarantees of human rights from a host of eviscerating national security-based limitations. There has also been considerable support for diluting the Communist Party’s monopoly of political decision-making and freeing the courts and the mainstream media from a surfeit of political instruction.
Things reverted to normal by June 2013 when An Ba Sam again began publishing news updates and commentary on a daily basis at new, more secure websites. Then, on May 5, 2014, Vinh, the blog’s founder and editor – a retired police officer – was arrested at his home and his hard drive and other files taken as evidence. Also arrested was Vinh’s assistant, Thúy.
In fact, since October 2012, Vinh had turned over day to day management of ABS to Ms Thu, who has carried on the blog singlehandedly during Vinh’s incarceration. When the pressure of managing ABS updates became too great, she elected to drop the daily news summary, reasoning that Vietnam’s online public now has access to foreign-originated news on Vietnam from other reliable sources. ABS remains a top source of commentary on events. Its distinguished stable of contributors includes Vietnamese academics, old revolutionaries, independent journalists and retired officials.
“Our target audience,” says Ms Thu, “is normal readers living in Vietnam. We provide general news that might be censored by the Vietnamese authorities, advocate for the democracy movement and help victims of injustice. The blog is independent. We don’t support any political parties or groups. We have not accepted financial aid from any individuals, NGOs or political groups.”
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March 26, 2016
Viet Blogger Draws Five Years in Jail
by Nhan Quyen • [Human Rights], Nguyen Huu Vinh (Anh Ba Sam), Nguyen Thi Minh Thuy
Blogger Nguyen Huu Vinh and his assistant i courtroom on March 23, 2016 (Photo courtesy: AP)
David Brown, March 25, 2016
The Hanoi People’s Court on March 23 sentenced a prominent independent blogger, Nguyễn Hữu Vinh (pen name Anh Ba Sam or “Brother Gossip” to five years’ imprisonment on charges of “misusing democratic freedom to encroach on State interests [and] the legitimate rights of groups and individuals” according to the Vietnamese Criminal Code.
Vinh’s administrative assistant, Nguyễn Minh Thúy, who steadfastly refused to turn state’s evidence again him, drew a three year term.
The verdicts provide the first substantial indication of how Vietnam’s new leaders may manage civil rights cases. The short answer seems to to be: much the same as their predecessors.
Vinh and Thuy had already been detained under investigation for 20 months when, in January, the Hanoi high court announced that Vinh and Thuy would be tried on the eve of the Vietnam Communist Party’s Twelfth Congress. Within hours, a second notice announced their trial’s postponement.
The party meetings appointed a new slate of leaders after rejecting the bid of the two-term prime minister, Nguyen Tan Dung, to replace Nguyen Phu Trong as Vietnam’s top Communist official.
On party’s Politburo (executive committee) announced on January 28, there is a striking increase in the number of veteran party apparatchiks and senior police officers.
Ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact is pending in its 12 signatory nations. The pact is highly controversial in several capitals, and opponents have expressed doubt that Vietnam in particular would live up to civil rights commitments contained in what supporters herald as a “high-standard, rules-based free-trade agreement.”
Vietnam is a one-party socialist republic. All its institutions, including the courts, are supervised by the Communist Party. Judges and procurators are selected from party membership. While the judiciary is nominally accountable to the National Assembly, theoretically the highest institution of government power in the country, it is the party that holds sway.
Because the Anh Ba Sam blog has sustained a reputation for responsible journalism in an online environment characterised by lively but typically unaccountable and often reckless political commentary, the trial was closely watched in Vietnam.
“Anh Ba Sàm” first went online in 2007 with two sorts of fare: an objective digest of Western reportage on newsworthy events in and about Vietnam and thoughtful commentary by a distinguished stable of contributors. Colleagues of Vinh and Thuy have continued to publish the blog despite their incarceration. The blog has been hacked several times by unknown assailants.
In the second half of 2015, as leaks on the Communist Party leadership contest proliferated, Anh Ba Sam’s page views averaged over 100,000 daily. They spiked to 258,000 one day on the eve of the party congress.
Although it was the Anh Ba Sam blog that made him locally famous, the indictment against Vinh and Thuy published in January was based on unsigned posts allegedly made to two other blogs established in 2013, Dân Quyền (Peoples Rights) and Chép sừ Việt (Notes on Vietnamese Events). The indictment alleged that the two conspired to “slander and distort the truth about Vietnam.”
The arrest of Vinh and Thuy in May 2014 came in the context of acute tension between Vietnam and China after Beijing moved its first deep-water drilling rig into the disputed South China Sea and prohibited all marine vessels entering into a one mile radius of the Haiyang Shiyou 981′s drilling work. Calls for an anti-China protest rally were made here and there in the Vietnamese blogosphere.
Some Vietnamese dissidents regarded the bloggers’ arrest as evidence that the Vietnamese government was “yielding submission” to its Chinese counterpart by detaining a famous “anticommunist China” blogger.
Article 258 of the Vietnamese Constitution describes a crime of “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the State.” It has frequently been used to imprison bloggers and democracy activists in Vietnam in the recent years.
ABS was first hacked in November 2010 by unknown assailants, and again in June 2011. The damage was repaired and the blog soon went back on line. Three years ago, on March 13, 2013, ABS was hacked again. This time its attackers hijacked the files and changed all the passwords. Its US-based managing editor, Dinh Ngoc Thu, was subsequently the object of a scurrilous ad feminem attack cobbled together from photos taken out of context from her personal laptop files.
The 2013 attack came amid a lively debate on the Ba Sam blog about how the Vietnamese Constitution ought to be revised. Although the National Assembly called for the people to express their ideas, the final text, enacted late in 2013, “failed to address popular aspirations for change and reform, according to Human Rights Watch, which called on the country’s donors and development partners to redouble their efforts to press for constitutional and legal reforms to protect basic rights, such as freedom of expression and association.
Nonetheless, taking the legislature at its word, commentaries posted on Anh Ba Sam tilted sharply toward freeing the current constitution’s guarantees of human rights from a host of eviscerating national security-based limitations. There has also been considerable support for diluting the Communist Party’s monopoly of political decision-making and freeing the courts and the mainstream media from a surfeit of political instruction.
Things reverted to normal by June 2013 when An Ba Sam again began publishing news updates and commentary on a daily basis at new, more secure websites. Then, on May 5, 2014, Vinh, the blog’s founder and editor – a retired police officer – was arrested at his home and his hard drive and other files taken as evidence. Also arrested was Vinh’s assistant, Thúy.
In fact, since October 2012, Vinh had turned over day to day management of ABS to Ms Thu, who has carried on the blog singlehandedly during Vinh’s incarceration. When the pressure of managing ABS updates became too great, she elected to drop the daily news summary, reasoning that Vietnam’s online public now has access to foreign-originated news on Vietnam from other reliable sources. ABS remains a top source of commentary on events. Its distinguished stable of contributors includes Vietnamese academics, old revolutionaries, independent journalists and retired officials.
“Our target audience,” says Ms Thu, “is normal readers living in Vietnam. We provide general news that might be censored by the Vietnamese authorities, advocate for the democracy movement and help victims of injustice. The blog is independent. We don’t support any political parties or groups. We have not accepted financial aid from any individuals, NGOs or political groups.”