6/02/2010Bangkok Post
Communist flags flutter along a main street in the central coastal city of Nha Trang on February 2. An internationally-recognised writer and prominent dissident told a court on Friday that an assault charge against her was fabricated, but the judge jailed her for three-and-a-half years.
An internationally-recognised writer and prominent dissident told a court on Friday that an assault charge against her was fabricated, but the judge jailed her for three-and-a-half years.
The sentencing of Tran Khai Thanh Thuy after a day-long trial adds to what the United States says is a "spike" in human rights issues in the country.
"It's a fabrication and total slander," testified Thuy, who was born in 1960. "I protest this trial and I did not come here to suffer this."
Thuy's husband, Do Ba Tan, was tried on the same charge alongside her and also said the allegations were made up.
He received a two-year suspended sentence, to be followed by 47 months' probation.
The verdict brought an immediate reaction from the US embassy.
"The United States is very disturbed by the conviction of writer Tran Khai Thanh Thuy and her husband," an embassy spokesman said, calling for their release. "No individual should be beaten, arrested or convicted for exercising the right to free speech."
After Thuy's arrest in October, the US embassy said it was concerned she "was beaten and arrested" after she publicly expressed support for a group of activists.
That group was tried and convicted in October for "propaganda against the state" related to the hanging of democracy banners and other calls for political reform.
Thuy's conviction brings to at least 16 the number of activists jailed since October.
"The accused consider themselves victims in this matter," their lawyer, Tran Vu Hai, told court.
He said their arrest was illegal, the police badly handled the case, the confessions of witnesses and the alleged victims were illogical, and the evidence failed to support the case.
Foreign diplomats and some journalists were allowed to monitor Thuy's trial from a separate room over closed-circuit television.
Tan and Thuy were accused of using a motorcycle helmet, a brick and a stick to beat two men during a parking dispute in Hanoi on October 8, the prosecutor said, adding that one victim received head injuries.
They were charged with "intentionally inflicting injury".
In her verdict, Judge Tran Thi Phuong Hien called it a serious case and said the "hooligan" behaviour of the accused posed a danger to society.
She ordered them to pay a total of 17,370,000 dong (933 dollars) in compensation.
Thuy was not in court to hear her sentence because the judge ordered her taken away for talking while the verdict was read.
During the trial Thuy's lawyer showed the court photographs of what he said was her head bleeding after she was beaten.
The writer and her husband said that, rather than being the aggressors, they were attacked by the alleged victims.
"Charging the victim of a beating with assault is yet another example of Vietnam's Kafkaesque efforts to silence government critics," the US-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement on the eve of the trial.
Thuy is an honorary member of English PEN, a London-based charity working to promote literature and human rights.
She is the author of numerous novels and political essays and also wrote a blog.
Human Rights Watch in 2007 named Thuy a winner of its Hellman/Hammett award for writers who have been targets of political persecution.
The US has "raised concerns" with the Vietnamese government about previous incidents when intruders used violence, harassed Thuy's family and damaged her home, the embassy spokesman said.
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