Your Excellency:
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns today's harsh sentencing
of writer Pham Hong Son to 13 years in prison plus an additional three
years of administrative detention, or house arrest, on charges of espionage.
Son was arrested on March 27, 2002, after circulating a series of articles
and essays online promoting democracy and human rights. The government
accused Son of translating and sending documents by e-mail that are
"anti-Communist Party and anti-Vietnam" so that others would "start
a campaign to slander the government of Vietnam," according to a CPJ
source who saw a copy of the indictment presented before the Hanoi People's
Court today. The government also accused Son of maintaining contact
with "political opportunists" and "reactionary forces overseas."
Today's proceedings were closed to foreign diplomats and correspondents
on the grounds that Son's prosecution was an "internal affair of Vietnam,"
as one security officer told the news agency Deutsche-Presse Agentur.
Son's wife was also barred from the courtroom, except when she was called
to testify briefly. She did not see her husband today and has not been
allowed to see him since his arrest more than a year ago, according
to a CPJ source.
Shortly before his arrest last year, Son had translated into Vietnamese
and posted online an essay titled, "What is Democracy?" (This article
had first appeared on the U.S. State Department Web site.) Son, a medical
doctor by training, had also written several other essays advocating
political reform that appeared in Vietnamese-language online forums.
As a nonpartisan organization of journalists dedicated to the defense
of our colleagues around the world, CPJ calls for the immediate and
unconditional release of Pham Hong Son, who we believe has committed
no crime under international law. Your government has denied Son his
right to free expression, and ignored even the most basic requirements
of due process by delaying his trial for more than a year and then prosecuting
him behind closed doors.
CPJ believes that your government has exploited the very serious charge
of espionage in this case to send a chilling signal to anyone in Vietnam
who uses the Internet to distribute news and information to colleagues
overseas.
Son's sentence is one of the harshest handed down to a dissident in
recent years and is an alarming indication that your government is moving
toward greater repression, instead of taking the necessary steps to
allow freedom of expression and of the press in Vietnam.
Sincerely,
Ann K. Cooper
Executive Director
