Exile the price of freedom for Vietnamese blogger Ta Phong Tan
Nearly two months after her early release from a decade-long prison sentence, Vietnamese blogger Ta Phong Tan is settling into life in exile in the U.S. Hers was the latest in a series of U.S. State Department-negotiated releases of political prisoners held on anti-state charges on condition they promptly leave Vietnam, removed from their families,…
Poor trade-off: Jailed journalists released into exile as Vietnam pushes for weapons deal
In September, Vietnamese blogger Ta Phong Tan was released after serving three years of a 10-year prison term and was immediately flown to Los Angeles. In October 2014 Tan’s colleague Nguyen Van Hai, whom she co-founded the Free Journalists Club with in 2007 and who was also imprisoned for his work, followed the same route.
CPJ welcomes release of Vietnamese blogger Ta Phong Tan
New York, September 20, 2015–The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release from prison of Vietnamese blogger Ta Phong Tan and calls on authorities to release all other journalists and bloggers imprisoned in the country. Tan was freed from prison and traveled to the United States, where she arrived late Saturday, according to local and…
US-Vietnam strategic partnership must be contingent on press freedom
Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent visit to Vietnam was made to celebrate the 20th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the former adversaries. While Kerry’s speech during his three-day tour emphasized the need for Hanoi to improve its rights record to deepen bilateral ties, it is time Washington dispensed with vaulted rhetoric and predicated future…
Q&A: Ta Phong Tan’s sister calls for release of ailing and jailed Vietnamese blogger
As an independent blogger, Ta Phong Tan often highlighted abuses in Vietnam’s justice system. Now as a prisoner of conscience serving a 10-year sentence for “propagandizing against the state,” an anti-state offense under Article 88 of Vietnam’s criminal code, she is suffering under the same abusive system she once critiqued and exposed.
Dieu Cay on solitary confinement, hunger strikes, and his fight for press freedom
EDITOR’S NOTE: Held in solitary confinement and stripped of his human rights, Vietnamese blogger Nguyen Van Hai suffered greatly during his six and a half years in prison. The 63-year-old outspoken critic of the repressive Vietnamese government was granted early release from a 12-year sentence last year, thanks in part to campaigning by CPJ. Hai,…
Jailed Vietnamese blogger Ta Phong Tan on hunger strike over mistreatment
Incarcerated blogger Ta Phong Tan has been on hunger strike since May 13 to protest the mistreatment of political prisoners at the prison where she is being held in Vietnam’s central Thanh Hoa province, according to news reports. It is believed to be the third time Tan has fasted in protest at poor prison conditions…
In Vietnam, arrests dash hopes that crackdown on bloggers will end
What one hand gives, the other takes in Vietnam. Last October’s early release of jailed blogger Nguyen Van Hai, more commonly known as Dieu Cay, has proven to be an anomaly as authorities have subsequently ramped up their repression of other independent bloggers.