Vietnam court sentences fifth democracy activist in two weeks

Jan 29, 2010, 7:40 GMT

Hanoi - A Haiphong court Friday sentenced a democracy activist to four years in prison, the fifth such conviction in two weeks.

Pham Thanh Nghien, 33, was convicted under Article 88 of the Criminal Code for 'spreading propaganda against the state' by the court in Vietnam's third-largest city.

'She admitted her deeds, but did not admit that her deeds were crimes,' said Tran Vu Hai, Nghien's defence lawyer.

Hai said Nghien had been charged with defaming the authorities in her online articles, including one about the families of eight fishermen allegedly shot dead by Chinese naval vessels in 2005.

In that article Nghien called on the Vietnamese government to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Hai said that the families subsequently denied the statements which Nghien had reported as given to her in interviews.

The court found five of the eight articles Nghien had written contained propaganda against the state. Nghien was also charged with giving interviews to foreign media, including Radio Free Asia and the BBC.

'She is just a worker, she only weighs 35 kilograms,' Hai said. 'How can she be a danger to society?'

'My sister told the court she was innocent, but the court said she was guilty, and I don't know what really happened,' said Nghien's sister Pham Thi Lich. 'But I think the verdict was decided before the trial.'

Nghien is a member of Bloc 8406, a network of democracy activists founded in 2006. She received the Human Rights Watch Hellman/Hammett Award in 2009 for her work as an independent journalist facing political persecution.

The cases are part of a broad crackdown that has seen dozens of bloggers and democracy activists arrested and interrogated over the past year.

On January 20, a Ho Chi Mnh City court sentenced four Vietnamese democracy activists, including prominent lawyer Le Cong Dinh, to between five and 16 years in prison.