September 3, 2009
HANOI — A Vietnamese blogger has been arrested in a case closely linked to the detentions last week of another blogger and a journalist, a foreign diplomat said Thursday.
“I can confirm” Quynh Nhu, who blogs under the name of Me Nam, has been arrested, said the diplomat, who asked not to be named.
He declined to give details but said Nhu was arrested for “the same reason” as Pham Doan Trang, a journalist for prominent news website VietnamNet, and Bui Thanh Hieu, who blogs under the name Nguoi Buon Gio (Wind Trader).
Both were arrested late last week allegedly over “national security” issues, according to their acquaintances.
Although Me Nam had written about issues related to China, the diplomat said he understood she “was taking it a step further” and that this contributed to her arrest. He did not elaborate.
The arrested reporter had written about sovereignty issues in the South China Sea, where Vietnam and China are engaged in a boundary dispute. She had written that China “possesses the conditions to become a regional hegemonist.”
Recent posts on the Wind Trader blog commented on the Vietnam-China maritime dispute, on a controversial bauxite mining project in the Central Highlands, and criticised the arrests of human rights lawyer Le Cong Dinh and others.
US ambassador Michael Michalak recently expressed concern over the arrests as well as communist Vietnam’s efforts to crack down on the media and to “criminalise free speech.”
Analysts saw Dinh’s arrest in May as part of a long-running crackdown. Some observers said the arrest of him and the others was partly a message to those who see the government as too accommodating towards China on border disputes and mining.
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