Vietnam, March 31, 2007
Many overseas Vietnamese in the US and several Eastern European countries recently became aware of the so-called Viet Tan Party through several websites and tabloid newspapers published in Vietnamese abroad. Some of them have been seduced and deceived by Viet Tan, according to the General Department of Security under the Vietnam Ministry of Public Security during a briefing with leaders of press agencies in Hanoi on March 28.
Geneva, March 30, 2007
In a move praised by Western diplomats as a step towards the rule of law, Vietnam this week announced the abolition of Decree 31/CP on “Administrative Probation”, a measure routinely invoked to detain dissidents and government critics without trial. However, in a Written Statement to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the Vietnam Committee on Human Rights stated that the communist authorities had remained silent on the existence of a lesser known but more repressive law, Ordinance 44 on “Regulating Administrative Violations”, which gives local officials wider powers to not only to arrest and detain citizens suspected of “national security” offences, as Decree 31/CP, but also to commit them to mental hospitals or “rehabilitation camps” without any due process of law.
Father Nguyen Van Ly, a 60-year-old Catholic priest who helped set up an internet petition calling for democratic change, was today sentenced to eight years imprisonment for "conducting propaganda" against the state. Four of his associates, Nguyen Phong, Nguyen Binh Thanh, Hoang Thi Anh Dao and Le Thi Hang, were also sentenced.
The trial of Nguyen Van Ly and his accomplices for spreading propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam will begin in the People's Court of the central province of Thua Thien-Hue on Mar. 30.Based on investigations by the provincial security forces, the People's Procuracy issued an indictment against Ly and his co-conspirators, charging them with violating clause 1 of Article 88 of the Penal Code.
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Hanoi, March 24, 2007
As a sign of its rapidly warming ties with the United States, Vietnam will send one of its most
respected diplomats as the new ambassador to Washington.
Mr Le Cong Phung, 59, the most senior of the nation's four deputy foreign ministers, will soon be named as Hanoi's new man in the US.
