A prominent Vietnamese journalist who documented protests and human rights violations in the communist-run country was sentenced to six years in jail Wednesday, his lawyer said.
Nguyen Lan Thang, an activist and freelance writer who is well-known in Vietnam for his criticism of the government, was convicted of spreading “anti-state propaganda” in the one-day, rare closed-door trial in Hanoi.
His lawyer, Nguyen Ha Luan, told AFP that the journalist — who was a contributor to Radio Free Asia Vietnamese blog — had also been sentenced to two years’ probation.
Vietnam has strict curbs on freedom of expression and the government moves swiftly to stamp out dissent and arrest critics, especially those who find an audience online. Independent media is banned.
Thang, 47, was arrested at his home in Hanoi in July last year and has been denied regular family visits since then, according to his relatives.
His wife, Le Bich Vuong, wrote on Facebook that she was “shocked” by the sentence.
“I had hoped for his freedom because what my husband has been doing is positive, they are good deeds,” she said.
Born into a well-known family, Thang reported on a range of issues, defending human rights and freedom of religion, and supporting land rights petitioners.
He traveled to sites of forced land confiscation to film the authorities’ use of excessive force and also participated in many pro-environment protests, according to Human Rights Watch.
Thang wrote more than 130 blog entries, the rights group said, quoting him as saying that he wanted to “help expose and demythologize things for common people, so they dare to stand up and demand their rights”. (VOA)