Vietnam Pro-democracy Activist Sentenced to Prison
- 14 years ago
A Vietnamese court sentenced Tran Anh Kim to five-and-half years in prison on Monday for subversion, a charge often used to silence dissidents who speak out against communist authorities.
Kim was a soldier-turned-democracy campaigner and a leader of the banned democracy group Bloc 8406 and deputy secretary of the Democratic Party of Vietnam.
Kim had compiled and published 85 articles online that opposed Vietnam’s communist authorities.
Amid tight security, a handful of journalists watched the trial on closed circuit television at the courthouse in the coastal province of Thai Binh, southeast of Hanoi.
Prosecutors sought a prison sentence of five to seven years, followed by three years of probation, which was granted.
A defense lawyer asked the court for leniency in consideration of Kim’s contributions as a war veteran. Kim had been wounded in action and is not in good health.
Kim did not plead guilty or no guilty in his final statement, but rather questioned why the authorities had taken so long to arrest and bring him to trial.
The five-and-a-half-year sentence included time served.
Kim’s case is the first in a spurt of dissident trials in the communist state. Four other democracy supporters are due to stand trial in the coming weeks.
Analysts say these trials, and the jailing of nine democracy advocates earlier this year, appear organized to discourage dissent in the run-up to the next Communist Party Congress scheduled for early 2011.
Kim was a soldier-turned-democracy campaigner and a leader of the banned democracy group Bloc 8406 and deputy secretary of the Democratic Party of Vietnam.
Kim had compiled and published 85 articles online that opposed Vietnam’s communist authorities.
Amid tight security, a handful of journalists watched the trial on closed circuit television at the courthouse in the coastal province of Thai Binh, southeast of Hanoi.
Prosecutors sought a prison sentence of five to seven years, followed by three years of probation, which was granted.
A defense lawyer asked the court for leniency in consideration of Kim’s contributions as a war veteran. Kim had been wounded in action and is not in good health.
Kim did not plead guilty or no guilty in his final statement, but rather questioned why the authorities had taken so long to arrest and bring him to trial.
The five-and-a-half-year sentence included time served.
Kim’s case is the first in a spurt of dissident trials in the communist state. Four other democracy supporters are due to stand trial in the coming weeks.
Analysts say these trials, and the jailing of nine democracy advocates earlier this year, appear organized to discourage dissent in the run-up to the next Communist Party Congress scheduled for early 2011.