The famous Vietnamese dissident journalist is sentenced to nine years in prison on charges of “propaganda” against the state.
A Hanoi court on Tuesday sentenced a famous Vietnamese dissident journalist to nine years in prison on “propaganda” charges against the state.
Pham Doan Trang, a human rights and press freedom activist, has long shamed the authorities by tackling a multitude of controversial issues, ranging from land grabbing to police violence.
Arrested in Ho Chi Minh City in October 2020, this 43-year-old woman appeared Tuesday in a one-day trial, the development of which was observed by journalists and diplomats through video, despite frequent cuts in her audio signal.
Pham Doan Trang, who previously had worked in the state media, she was accused of “spreading propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam”explained Judge Chu Phuong Ngoc.
“His behavior is dangerous for society”, with the “intention of violating the socialist regime”, and consequently must “be seriously punished,” he added.
During the hearing, Trang, who has a limping leg since she was injured six years ago when the police dispersed a demonstration in defense of the environment, stressed that she was arrested 25 times since 2015 and was “terrorized” by the security forces.
In 2016, he wrote about the worst environmental disaster in Vietnam: a spill of toxic products that caused the death of tons of fish. That same year she was arrested when she was on her way to a meeting in Hanoi with the then president of the United States, Barack Obama, who had invited her. (I)
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