A prominent Vietnamese blogger known as “Mother Mushroom” yesterday went on trial for anti-state propaganda, a court clerk said, as rights groups decried the charges as “outrageous” and demanded her immediate release.
Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, whose pen name derives from her daughter’s nickname “mushroom,” was arrested in October last year for critical Facebook posts about politics and the environment.
Vietnam’s one-party state keeps a tight clamp on dissent and routinely jails activists, bloggers and lawyers who speak out against the communist regime.
A court clerk, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity, confirmed Quynh’s trial started yesterday morning.
Quynh’s mother, who was allowed to briefly see her daughter on Wednesday for the first time since she was detained, said she has little hope for a not-guilty verdict.
“My daughter has done nothing wrong, but they have been so brutal and repressive,” Nguyen Thi Tuyet Lan said.
Reporters were banned from attending the trial in Khanh Hoa Province and photographs on Facebook showed the courthouse heavily guarded by police.
Quynh was a vocal critic of Vietnam’s human rights record, civilian deaths in police custody and the government’s handling of a toxic leak that killed tonnes of fish last year.
She was arrested in the city of Nha Trang on Oct. 10 last year as she was visiting a fellow activist in prison.
She was charged under Article 88 of Vietnam’s criminal code and held incommunicado with no access to lawyers until June 20, her attorney Nguyen Kha Thanh said.
New York-based Human Rights Watch urged authorities to release the 37-year-old blogger this week, calling the trial “outrageous.”
“The scandal here is not what Mother Mushroom said, but Hanoi’s stubborn refusal to repeal draconian, rights-abusing laws that punish peaceful dissent and tarnish Vietnam’s international reputation,” Human Rights Watch deputy Asia director Phil Robertson said in a statement on Wednesday.
The US, Britain and the EU have all called for Quynh’s release.
She in March received an International Woman of Courage Award from the US Department of State, which Vietnam said was “not appropriate and of no benefit for the development of relations between the two countries.”
In 2015, Quynh was named Civil Rights Defender of the Year by a Sweden-based international advocacy group.
Pins hidden in her shoes, head forced down a toilet, kicked in the stomach: South Korean hairdresser Pyo Ye-rim suffered a litany of abuse from school bullies, but now she is speaking out. The 26-year-old is part of a phenomenon sweeping South Korea known as “Hakpok #MeToo,” where people who were bullied publicly name and shame the perpetrators of school violence — “hakpok” in Korean — decades after the alleged crimes. Made famous globally by Netflix’s gory revenge series The Glory, the movement has ensnared everyone from K-pop stars to baseball players and accusations — often anonymous — can be career-ending, with
One of Australia’s two active volcanoes on an island near Antarctica — known as Big Ben — has been spotted by satellite spewing lava. The lava flow on the uninhabited Heard Island, about 4,100km southwest of Perth and 1,500km north of Antarctica, is part of an ongoing eruption that was first noted more than a decade ago. The image was caught by the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite on Thursday, and is a composite of an optical picture and an infrared image. The lava is seen flowing down the side of Big Ben from near the summit, known as Mawson Peak.
TIME TO TALK: Among China’s grievances were economic and trade issues related to Taiwan, but both countries emphasized the need to maintain communication US Trade Representative Katherine Tai (戴琪) on Friday raised complaints about China’s state-led economic policies during a meeting with Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao (王文濤), who objected to US tariffs and trade policies, as well as issues related to Taiwan, their offices said. However, statements from the US Trade Representative’s (USTR) office and the Chinese Ministry of Commerce emphasized the need for Washington and Beijing to maintain communication on trade. “Ambassador Tai highlighted the need to address the critical imbalances caused by China’s state-led, non-market approach to the economy and trade policy,” the USTR said in a statement released after the
READY FOR ACTION: Military, police, firefighters and volunteers were standing by for search-and-rescue operations, with an official saying they ‘cannot afford not to prepare’ Philippine officials yesterday began evacuating thousands of people, shut down schools and offices and imposed a no-sail ban as Typhoon Mawar approached the country’s northern provinces a week after battering the US territory of Guam. The typhoon was packing maximum sustained winds of 155kpm and gusts of up to 190kph, but was forecast to spare the mountainous region a direct hit. Current projections show the typhoon veering northeast toward Taiwan or southern Japan. Although it is expected to slow down considerably, authorities warned of dangerous tidal surges, flash floods and landslides as it blows past the northernmost province of Batanes from today
RSS