Vietnam: Drop prosecution of blogger

By Human Rights Watch

(New York) – 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.

Blogger Pham Viet Dao attends a conference on social media in Hanoi on December 24, 2012. Vietnamese police arrested Dao on June 13, 2013 for allegedly “abusing democratic freedoms.” © 2013 Reuters

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. “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.

Read the full story by Human Rights Watch.