The spokesman for the European External Action Service denounced, on Wednesday 6 January, the sentencing of journalists Nguyen Tuong Thuy and Le Huu Minh Tuan to 11 years in prison and Pham Chi Dung to 15 years, convicted of spreading propaganda against the State. He called, in a statement, for their immediate release.
The sentencing of these three members of the Independent Journalists’ Association of Vietnam “is a negative development”, the spokesman said. “States must protect freedom of expression and create a favourable environment for public debate even when the opinions expressed are contrary to those held by the authorities”, he stressed.
The spokesman recalled that the right to freedom of expression is guaranteed in the Vietnamese Constitution. He added that, in the context of the Universal Periodic Review, Hanoi had accepted recommendations to guarantee and lift restrictions on freedom of opinion and expression. “However, the increasing number of arrests, imprisonment and sentencing of Vietnamese journalists and human rights defenders go in the opposite direction”, the spokesman said.
He warned that the EU would continue to monitor the human rights situation and to work with the authorities and all relevant stakeholders to improve the human rights situation in the country. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)