July 18, 2009
HANOI – SIX Vietnamese dissidents, arrested before the latest wave of arrests of human rights activists, will be prosecuted for ’propaganda’ against the regime, a government official said late on Friday.
The state prosecutor’s office will try them for ’the crime of propaganda against the socialist republic of Vietnam… for having propagandised against, distorted and humiliated the people’s administration,’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Le Dung said.
He added that the charges also include ’the making, storing and circulation of documents with content’ against the republic, but gave no further details.
Among those to be tried is the writer Nguyen Xuan Nghia, a leader in pro-democracy group Bloc 8406. Founded on April 8, 2006 the group calls for political pluralism in Vietnam.
Nghia’s arrest last year was denounced by dissidents outside the country.
The California-based Viet Tan highlighted at the time that his detention came during a period of heightened political tension in Hanoi.
Hundreds of Catholics were calling for the return of church land seized by the communist government several decades ago while the fiftieth anniversary of a territorial concession by North Vietnam to the Chinese was approaching.
Nghia’s name had appeared on a petition circulating on the Internet calling on Vietnam to refute the legality of a 1958 letter by then Prime Minister of North Vietnam, Pham Van Dong, recognising Chinese sovereignty in the South China Sea including the archipelagos of the Spratley and Paracel islands.
The long-standing dispute over ownership of the archipelagos has escalated again in the past few months, while a controversial bauxite mining project in Vietnam involving China has also raised tensions over the sensitive issue of the relationship between the two countries.
Some observers have said the most recent series of arrests, including that of human rights lawyer Le Cong Dinh, is tied to the government’s policy towards China.