Vietnam Human Rights Network welcomes news about the release of blogger Ta Phong Tan 

 

 

Little Saigon (September 20, 2015) – The Vietnam Human Rights Network welcomes the news of blogger Ta Phong Tan’s release from prison camp Thanh Hoa and of her arrival in the US on September 19, 2015.

 

Blogger Ta Phong Tan was one of the first bloggers to innovatively use blogging as a medium to expose wrongdoings by the Vietnamese Communist Party as well as to raise the situation of corruption and injustice in the legal system on a webpage called “Justice and Truth”(Công Lý vŕ Sự Thật). She was also a co-founder of the “Free Journalists Club” (Câu Lạc Bộ Nhŕ Báo Tự Do). Because of these activities, she was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment and 2 years of house arrest for “conducting propaganda against the state” in a hurried trial in September 2012, even though she remained determined never to admit any guilt.

 

The Vietnam Human Rights Network awarded blogger Ta Phong Tan the Vietnam Human Rights Award in December 2012 along with two other human rights activists Pham Thanh Nghien and Huynh Thuc Vy.

 

The Vietnamese government’s release of blogger Ta Phong Tan before the end of her sentence due to international pressure represents a concession, albeit a long overdue one.

 

The Vietnam Human Rights Network continues to demand that the Vietnamese government release immediately and unconditionally all human rights activists currently still imprisoned, and that it stop using prisoners of conscience as bargaining chips in political and trade negotiations.

 

 

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