{"id":36022,"date":"2017-07-10T09:30:53","date_gmt":"2017-07-10T09:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/queme.org\/en\/?p=36022"},"modified":"2021-04-06T15:25:55","modified_gmt":"2021-04-06T15:25:55","slug":"leicester-post-vietnamese-blogger-mother-mushroom-jailed-criticising-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/leicester-post-vietnamese-blogger-mother-mushroom-jailed-criticising-government\/","title":{"rendered":"<em>Leicester Post:<\/em> Vietnamese blogger Mother Mushroom jailed for criticising government"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/leicesterpost.com\/2017\/06\/30\/vietnamese-blogger-mother-mushroom-jailed-for-criticising\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Leicester Post<\/a> &#8211; Posted on Friday, June 30, 2017 by Orlando Rodriquez<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image wp-image-36023\"><figure class=\"aligncenter is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/queme.org\/\/app\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Me-Nam2017-0630.jpg\" alt=\"Vietnamese dissident Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh. Source Writers Write\" class=\"wp-image-36023\" width=\"705\" height=\"435\" srcset=\"https:\/\/queme.org\/app\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Me-Nam2017-0630.jpg 940w, https:\/\/queme.org\/app\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Me-Nam2017-0630-150x93.jpg 150w, https:\/\/queme.org\/app\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Me-Nam2017-0630-800x494.jpg 800w, https:\/\/queme.org\/app\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Me-Nam2017-0630-300x185.jpg 300w, https:\/\/queme.org\/app\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Me-Nam2017-0630-768x474.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 705px) 100vw, 705px\" \/><figcaption>Vietnamese dissident Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh. Source Writers Write<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>A VIETNAMESE court on Thursday sentenced a prominent blogger and rights activist to 10 years in prison for criticising government policies and defaming the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2017\/jun\/29\/vietnamese-blogger-jailed-for-10-years-for-defaming-regime\">Communist regime<\/a> on Facebook and in foreign media interviews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, whose pen name derives from her daughter&#8217;s nickname &#8220;mushroom&#8221;, was arrested in October 2016 and later charged with anti-state propaganda over critical Facebook posts about politics and <a href=\"https:\/\/enca.com\/life\/environmentalists-turn-spotlight-on-vietnamese-wildlife-trafficking-hub\">the environment<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/asia\/vietnam\">Vietnam<\/a> Committee on Human Rights (VCHR) have also condemned today&#8217;s conviction and prison sentence of Quynh, calling for &#8220;<strong>her immediate and unconditional release<\/strong>&#8220;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Vietnam denies jailing political prisoners without fair trial and at a news briefing regarding Quynh foreign ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang tried to justify their decision. <em>the Guardian<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In March 2009, Quynh spent nine days in police detention for receiving funds from Viet Tan, a California-based activist group which Vietnam calls a terrorist group, to print T-shirts carrying slogans against a major bauxite project in the Central Highlands, police said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of State said it was deeply concerned about the conviction of Quynh, who she described as a 2017 International Woman of Courage awardee. She founded a network of bloggers in her homeland and has written about deaths in police custody, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2016\/jul\/01\/vietnam-blames-toxic-waste-water-fom-steel-plant-for-mass-fish-deaths\">environmental disasters<\/a> and human rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The US called on Vietnam to release Nguyen and &#8220;all other prisoners of conscience immediately&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/news\/2016\/01\/27\/vietnam-end-thuggish-repression-activists\">Human Rights Watch<\/a> earlier decried the trial as &#8220;outrageous&#8221; and demanded her release. &#8220;Condemning her to 10 years in prison for her writing is an obscene injustice&#8221;. According to Human Rights Watch, at least 45 bloggers and rights activists were assaulted by plain-clothes government agents in 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2015, Quynh was awarded the Civil Rights Defender of the Year by a Sweden-based global advocacy group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a previous interview with Civil Rights Defenders, Quynh said she was fighting for freedom of expression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Those articles gave one-sided and superficial views that stirred up public worries and affected people&#8217;s trust in the Party&#8217;s leadership and the State&#8217;s governance and management of society, and incited people to resist the State, thus harming national security and social order and safety, the indictment said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She is famous for using the tagline, &#8220;Who will speak if you don&#8217;t?&#8221; In a pre-sentence <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/news\/2017\/06\/28\/vietnam-free-blogger-mother-mushroom\">statement<\/a> she admitted no guilt and instead used the opportunity to send a message to her two kids and mother, the lawyer added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The scandal here is not what Mother Mushroom said, but Hanoi&#8217;s stubborn refusal to repeal draconian, rights-abusing laws that punish peaceful dissent and tarnish Vietnam&#8217;s worldwide reputation&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The United States, Britain and the European Union have all called for Quynh&#8217;s release.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Leicester Post &#8211; Posted on Friday, June 30, 2017 by Orlando Rodriquez Vietnamese dissident Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh. Source Writers Write A VIETNAMESE court on Thursday sentenced a prominent blogger and rights activist to 10 years in prison for criticising government policies and defaming the Communist regime on Facebook and in foreign media interviews. Nguyen &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":434,"featured_media":36023,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[368,60],"tags":[286,380,378],"class_list":["post-36022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-forb","category-press-review","tag-forb-2","tag-mother-mushroom","tag-nguyen-ngoc-nhu-quynh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/434"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}