Three Vietnamese jailed for forming party

By Staff
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HO CHI MINH CITY, May 10 (Reuters) A court in communist-run Vietnam sentenced three people to between three to five years in prison today in the first of three trials of political activists in May.

The defendants were accused in Ho Chi Minh City People's Court of using the Internet ''to sow discontent among the public'' and forming a group, the People's Democratic Party, to organise protests.

Prosecutors in Ho Chi Minh City linked the defendants to a Vietnamese-born U.S. citizen, Cong Thanh Do of San Jose, California, who was expelled from Vietnam last September. Do was accused of advocating the government's overthrow.

''Do was the leader but the others should receive lighter sentences because there were no serious consequences,'' Trinh Vinh Phuc, a lawyer for defendant Nguyen Bac Truyen, said in an appeal for leniency in the French colonial-era courtroom with paint peeling from the green and yellow walls.

The Communist Party of Vietnam is the only legal political party in the country of 84 million people, whose standards of living are steadily rising with economic market reforms.

Journalists from international media were able to watch the trial from an adjacent room, which was also installed with two closed-circuit TV sets.

Defendant Le Nguyen Sang, 48, a doctor, was sentenced to five years imprisonment at the close of the four-hour long trial. Businessman Truyen, 39, was sentenced to four years and businessman Huynh Nguyen Dao, 39, to three years.

They were also ordered to serve two years of ''administrative surveillance'' at the end of their terms.

In court, Dao said: ''I did not understand the laws very clearly.'' They and other activists on trial on Friday and next Tuesday were charged under article 88 of the criminal code with offences of ''spreading propaganda against the state''.

Analysts and diplomats say the jailing of a dissident Catholic priest in March and the May trials indicate Hanoi is intolerant of those proposing alternatives to one-party rule.

But their criticism is mixed with praise for an economic development programme that has lifted millions out of poverty.

Hanoi rejects accusations by Western human rights groups of cracking down on dissidents after it successfully hosted an Asia-Pacific summit, won World Trade Organisation membership and was removed from a US religious rights blacklist in 2006.

Reuters RJ DS1207

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