HANOI:  , A Vietnamese court on Thursday ( Feb 27 ) sentenced a leading independent journalist to 30 months in prison over Facebook posts that criticised the government, state media said.
Huy Duc worked for important state-run papers before authoring one of Vietnam’s most popular blogs and Instagram accounts, where he criticised the country’s socialist leaders on issues such as problem, media command and relations with China.
The 63-year-old was found guilty by the Hanoi judge of violating the state’s rights by publishing 13 Facebook posts, Vietnam News Agency reported.
The test was brief in its execution.
” These articles have a large number of relationships, remarks, and stocks, causing adverse effects on interpersonal order and safety”, the indictment read, according to state media.
Immediately before his arrest last June, Huy Duc– which is the writer’s pen name – took purpose online at Vietnam’s most prominent leader To Lam, as well as his predecessor Nguyen Phu Trong.
If these special posts were the subject of these charges, it’s not clear.
Vietnam, a one-party condition, has no free press and screws down hard on any opposition. It is one of the world’s top jailers of journalists, according to the Reporters Without Borders ( RSF ) press freedom campaign group.
Duong Van Thai, a blogger with nearly 120, 000 followers on YouTube who routinely recorded livestreams criticizing the government, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for publishing anti-state information just months after his sentencing in Hanoi.
A well-known past attorney was jailed for three times in January for Facebook messages.