Mid-March brought the arrest of yet another prominent blogger in Vietnam. Sixty-two year old Pham Viet Dao was arrested in June of 2013 and sentenced to fifteen months in prison on March 19th. Truong Duy Nhat was sentenced to two years in prison just weeks earlier. Pham Viet Dao was sentenced under Article 258 of Vietnam’s […]
After well-known lawyer Le Quoc Quan’s sentence was upheld in Vietnamese court last month, neither pro-democracy activists nor the Vietnamese government are backing down. Activists continue to campaign for his release and the release of others and for the fair treatment of print, online, and personal expression under Vietnamese law. On the other hand, despite […]
As the third week of February comes to a close, the international community condemns the appeal trial verdict in the case of blogger and lawyer Le Quoc Quan. His sentence was upheld on February 18th. His trial drew crowds of protestors and has human rights organizations around the world calling again for critical reform in […]
Vietnam’s human rights situation has worsened with the ringing in of the new year. Vietnam has continued its crackdown on citizen dissent, censoring news sources and punishing its critics. This month’s events follow record highs of arrests and detentions in 2013. Amnesty International released a report during the first week of January that spoke of the failure […]
Twenty-one members of the U.S. House of Representatives have teamed up to sponsor various imprisoned activists from around the world. The bipartisan adoption program started in December of 2012 and aims to address the issue of human rights abuses falling away from the national and international spotlights. Representative Alan Lowenthal of California has adopted […]
The 88 Project would like to thank the Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law for raising awareness about Vietnamese prisoners of conscience Tran Huynh Duy Thuc and Nguyen Tien Trung, who are serving 16 and seven-year sentences, respectively. The group signed cards courtesy of Amnesty International […]
Members of Congress from both parties called on Secretary of State John Kerry on International Human Rights Day to address Vietnamese human rights issues before his trip to Vietnam. The letter to Kerry was signed by 47 members of Congress. A major concern is the consideration of human rights violations in Vietnam as the […]
Amnesty International France has adopted Nguyen Tien Trung’s case and projected his photo onto the building of the Vietnamese Embassy in Paris in order to raise awareness.
A lot has happened in Vietnam since bloggers took to the keys to write about human rights topics during Blog Action Day on October 16th. Unfortunately, Vietnam’s deteriorating human rights situation has only worsened in the three weeks following the event. In mid-October, news surfaced of another hunger strike for imprisoned activist Cu Huy Ha […]
Natasha Lemmens and her friends are pictured here signing Amnesty International postcards for Nguyen Tien Trung and Tran Huynh Duy Thuc. Thank you for your support! If you happen to be in Bloomington, Indiana, we can get some of these postcards to you also. Please send an e-mail to kdolen@indiana.edu for more information.