12 May 2008
Reporters Without Borders appealed today for clemency in the case of three people who are due to be tried in Ho Chi Minh City on 13 May in connection with a meeting organised by the banned Viet Tan (Reform) party in the city on 17 November to discuss the promotion of democracy. No specific charges have been brought against them but the authorities have talked of “terrorism.”
Two of the meeting’s six participants, including one of those facing trial, were regular contributors to the Vietnamese exile radio station New Horizon. Three of the meeting’s participants, a French woman and two US citizens, were released and deported. The three who are to be tried have been in a Ho Chi Minh City prison for the past six months.
They are Thai citizen Somsak Khumni (a New Horizon contributor), Ho Chi Minh City businessman Nguyen The Vu, and Nguyen Quoc Quan, a US citizen of Vietnamese origin. Relatives say their health has deteriorated as a result of negligence by the prison authorities.
Reporters Without Borders joins the many international organisations that have voiced support for the pro-democracy activists in the run-up to their trial.
“It would be shocking if Asian persons – a Thai and two Vietnamese – were to be convicted while the three other people involved, a French woman and two Americans, were released,” Reporters Without Borders said. “This kind of judicial discrimination would be deplorable and we therefore call for their acquittal.”