Falun Gong in Vietnam convicted for radio broadcasts to China

Nov 11, 2011, 3:03 GMT

Hanoi - Two Vietnamese Falun Gong practitioners have been jailed for broadcasting radio programmes into China, a member of the group said on Friday.

Vu Duc Trung, 31, and his brother-in-law Le Van Thanh, 36, were on Thursday sentenced to three years and two years respectively, a fellow Falun Gong practitioner in Vietnam told dpa on condition of anonymity.

They were sentenced under a section of the penal code that bans illegal telecommunications transmissions.

The programmes were originally from the Sound of Hope Network, a Chinese-language radio station based in California. The men were accused of rebroadcasting the programmes from a farm outside Hanoi, 130 kilometres from the Chinese border.

Journalists rights group Reporters Without Borders said on Friday the verdict was 'outrageous.'

'The unlicensed transmission of programmes that were not in Vietnamese nor aimed at a Vietnamese audience should not have been characterized as anything other than an administrative offence,' the Paris-based group said in a statement.

'This verdict shows the authorities were conveying the anger of their Chinese counterparts, who were the targets of the criticism expressed in the radio programmes.'

New York-based Human Rights Watch also condemned the sentence. Although it is illegal in China to broadcast information supporting the Falun Gong, is not forbidden in Vietnam, it said.

'More than just exporting goods and services to Vietnam, it now appears that China is exporting its abusive human rights practices too,' said Phil Robertson, the group's deputy Asia director.

On Tuesday, around 50 Falun Gong followers were detained by police during a peaceful demonstration outside the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi. All of them have now been released.

The Falun Gong has been banned since 1999 in China, where the meditation movement is officially considered a cult aiming to topple Communist rule.

Li Hung-zhi, the Chinese founder of the group who now lives in the United States, said that its practices improve health and promote social harmony.

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