Friday, July 9, 2004
Vietnam sentences cyber dissident to 19 months
Associated Press Hanoi, July 9
A court in Vietnam sentenced a pro-democracy activist to 19 months in jail for using the Internet to post articles critical of the government, a court official said Friday.
Academic Tran Khue, 68, was given one year in jail for "abuse (of) democratic rights to harm the interests of the State" and another seven months for defying a local government's house arrest order at the end of the half-day trial on Friday, the court official in Ho Chi Minh City said on condition of anonymity. Khue is scheduled to be released from prison in three weeks since the sentence included time served since his arrest in late December 2002, the official said.
Khue, a literature professor who started a group against corruption, has posted several critical articles on the Internet, including a piece on a controversial land border agreement with China.
Fellow dissident and former army Colonel Pham Que Duong, 73, accused of the same charge, will go on trial on July 14 in Hanoi, according to the government.
Both Duong and Khue were among a group of 21 people, many of them former Communist Party members and military veterans, who sent a petition to Vietnam's National Assembly in 2002 calling for democratic reforms.
Hanoi has cracked down on several political and religious dissidents over the past couple of years, sentencing several to lengthy jail sentences. The government maintains that only lawbreakers are punished despite sharp criticism from international human rights groups.
© HT Media Ltd. 2004.