Vietnam has arrested a prominent blogger and dissident for “anti-state activities” hours after its government held annual talks on human rights with the US, sources and international human rights groups said yesterday.
Pham Doan Trang, a writer who has published widely on human rights and alleged police brutality, was arrested in Ho Chi Minh City, charged with “making, storing, disseminating or propagandizing information, materials and products that aim to oppose the state of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” Human Rights Watch said.
Despite sweeping economic reform and increasing openness to social change, the Communist Party of Vietnam tolerates little criticism and has stepped up its crackdown on advocates ahead of a key party congress in January next year.
Trang’s arrest just before midnight on Tuesday came hours after an annual US-Vietnam human rights dialogue concluded.
The US embassy in Hanoi could not provide immediate comment on her detention. The arrest was not reported in Vietnam’s state media.
Trang was in 2014 among several advocates apprehended by the authorities on their way to a meeting with then-US president Barack Obama during his landmark visit to Vietnam.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International condemned Trang’s arrest and demanded her immediate release.
A source with direct knowledge of the matter said that Trang had been anticipating issues with the authorities just days before she was detained.
She had also shared a letter titled “Just in case I am imprisoned” dated May last year, which outlined democratic goals she strove to achieve.
She also asked that she be allowed to have her guitar in jail.
“I had a long chat with her on Sunday and she seemed very nervous,” said the source, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the case.
“When she arrived for our meeting she came carrying her large guitar on her back, explaining she felt they wouldn’t detain her if she was carrying that,” the source said.
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