HANOI, OCT 31 – A court in Vietnam yesterday sentenced a blogger who criticized the government to 12 years in prison on charges of publishing anti-state information, his lawyer said, after a secret trial.
Duong Van Thai regularly broadcasts live YouTube streams criticizing Vietnam’s authoritarian government, accusing it of corruption.
He resurfaced in Vietnamese custody last year after disappearing from Thailand where he had fled and been granted refugee status. Human rights groups accused Vietnamese authorities of abducting him.
“The trial has just ended. Thai was sentenced to 12 years in prison and three years of probation,” said his lawyer Le Luan AFP.
A Hanoi court, sitting in secret, convicted the Thai under article 117 of the criminal code, which prohibits the creation, storage and dissemination of information… aimed at opposing the Socialist Republic of Vietnam
State media said last year he ran a Facebook group that published distorted information about the private lives of Vietnamese leaders.
All media in one party in Vietnam are controlled by the government and independent bloggers are banned.
The country was ranked 174 out of 180 countries by the Reporters Without Borders campaign in the World Press Freedom Index group.
Government media reported that the Thai was arrested for illegally entering the country by crossing the border near Laos on April 14 last year. – AFP
