Tag: The Washington Post

The Washington Post recounts the events leading to the conviction of Pham Doan Trang for disseminating anti-state propaganda.

• Title: Vietnam jails its ‘most famous activist’ for nine years
• Publish Date: December 14, 2021
• Publisher: The Washington Post

Excerpt:  

Pham Doan Trang, a Vietnamese activist known for her writing on women’s empowerment and environmental issues, was sentenced to nine years in prison Tuesday for disseminating anti-state propaganda. It was the latest crackdown on dissent in the Southeast Asian country and drew condemnation from rights groups.

The Hanoi People’s Court gave Trang more time in prison than the seven to eight years prosecutors had requested.

Trang, who was repeatedly interrupted by the judge during the trial, denied all charges. Her lawyers said she was informed of her trial date only a day beforehand.

There was heavy security at the courthouse, with riot police on hand and checkpoints on the main roads leading to the area, as well as numerous plainclothes agents.

“The trial was held under tight security control, which is not new for trials of this kind,” said Le Van Luan, one of the five lawyers for Trang. “The judge handed down a sentence that is heavier than
what prosecutors recommended. That’s unusual.”Advertisement

“Trang was in good spirits,” he told The Washington Post as he left the courthouse, adding that they would appeal to a higher court within 15 days.

Trang, 43, has written numerous books and co-founded ­independent media outlets. She also founded the environmental group Green Trees. In 2019, Reporters Without Borders awarded her a Press Freedom Prize.

Despite opening the country to foreign investment and seeking closer ties with the United States, Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party retains tight control of the media and remains deeply intolerant of dissent. In a December 2020 report, Amnesty International said Vietnam held a record 170 prisoners of conscience, 40 percent of whom were incarcerated for sharing posts critical of the government on social media.

Nguyen Quang A, a prominent Vietnamese dissident, said the authorities were afraid of Trang, “the most famous activist in Vietnam.”Advertisement

“By jailing her, they are removing a focal point for dissidents in order to silence others,” Nguyen said. “The message is that the police can arrest anyone, so be obedient.”

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Foreshadowing a possible arrest by the Vietnam authorities, journalist and human rights defender Pham Doan Trang wrote a letter accepting her fate and the risk of being incarcerated.  

In the letter, the strong willed and courageous freedom fighter clearly expressed what everyone’s priority should be and that is fighting for a democratic, free Vietnam.

• Title: A dissident jailed in Vietnam shares her message: Don’t free me, free my country
• Publish Date: October 8, 2020
• Publisher: The Washington Post

Excerpt:

“JUST IN CASE I AM IMPRISONED,” Pham Doan Trang wrote across the top of a letter she gave to a fellow dissident for safekeeping last year. Vietnam’s most prominent democracy activist anticipated her arrest, which came Tuesday, when she was accused of “making, storing, distributing or disseminating information, documents and items against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.” Her letter was made public, and it contained a remarkable appeal.

“No one wants to sit in prison,” she said. “But if prison is inevitable for freedom fighters, if prison can serve a pre-determined purpose, then we should happily accept it.”

“I don’t want freedom for just myself; that’s too easy,” she wrote. “I want something greater: freedom for Vietnam.”

She urged people not to campaign for her release, but instead to seek democratic reforms, including free and fair elections for the National Assembly, and to focus on her writings and books about political rights, with titles such as “Politics for the Common People,” “Politics of a Police State,” “Citizen Journalism,” “A Handbook for Families of Prisoners” and others. If interrogated by the authorities, she vowed that she “will not admit guilt, confess, or beg for leniency,” but “will always assert that I want to abolish dictatorship in Vietnam.”

She also wrote: “Please take care of my mother.”

Ms. Trang’s arrest is the latest and one of the most flagrant in Vietnam’s long practice of squelching freedom of expression and political dissent, including arrests of bloggers and independent journalists. The repression appears to be intensifying ahead of a Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam, held every five years, expected in January. Ms. Trang is being held incommunicado, a common practice in such cases. Article 117 of the Vietnamese penal code, under which Ms. Trang and others have been charged, carries a potential 20-year prison term. She told Radio Free Asia in May, “Freedom has always been restricted, but nowadays it seems to be narrower, and there’s more and more violence. From now until the party congress, the scope of freedom can be tightened more and more, and the suppression will increase.”

In her letter, Ms. Trang recalled Vietnam’s practice of jailing dissidents, then releasing them under conditions of immediate expulsion, as with Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, the blogger known as Mother Mushroom, who was released from a Vietnamese jail and expelled to the United States in 2018. Ms. Trang rejected that fate. “Focus less on freeing me,” she wrote, and more on advancing her cause, including “free and fair elections.” These are the words of a selfless and courageous champion of democracy.

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