VIETNAM WRITER JAILED FOR FOUR YEARS FOR `PROPAGANDA`:COURTi

Jakarta Forum - HANOI, Jan 29, 2010, A Vietnamese court jailed a writer Friday for four years for "propaganda against the state", a court official said, in the latest in a series of cases against democracy activists in the communist state.

Pham Thanh Nghien was also ordered to spend three years under house arrest after serving her prison time, said the official, who declined to be named. Nghien, 32, was convicted and sentenced after a trial lasting less than a day in the northern port city of Haiphong.

Rights activists have said the charge under Penal Code Article 88 criminalises peaceful dissent. Before the trial her lawyer, Tran Vu Hai, said Nghien was accused in connection with a request she made to authorities in 2008 for a demonstration against inflation. She was further accused of staging a sit-in at her house with a banner to protest Vietnam`s handling of maritime relations with China, and of posting a picture of her protest on the Internet, he said.

Foreign journalists and diplomats were not permitted to attend the trial. The United States-based Human Rights Watch last year named Nghien as one of 37 writers from 19 countries to receive its Hellman/Hammett award for writers who have been targets of political persecution. Nghien was arrested in late 2008, about the same time as nine other dissidents also charged with propaganda against the state.

Appeals courts recently upheld jail terms against all nine. Last week a court in Ho Chi Minh City jailed four democracy activists between five and 16 years for trying to overthrow the regime, in a case which the European Union delegation to Vietnam called "a major and regrettable step backwards".

The US and Britain also voiced concern. Human Rights Watch said their case highlighted a climate of increasingly harsh political repression in the country. Another democracy activist, Nguyen Ba Dang, 44, was arrested in Hai Duong province and his computer seized last week, his wife said.

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