BBC
Cập nhật: 09:25 GMT - thứ năm, 8 tháng 12, 2011
Ủy ban Bảo vệ các nhà báo (CPJ) vừa ra phúc trình về tình trạng cầm tù các cây bút trên thế giới, trong đó có Việt Nam.
Phúc trình ra hôm thứ Năm 8/12 nhận định con số nhà báo, phóng viên bị các chính phủ bỏ tù đã tăng hơn 20% lên mức cao nhất kể từ giữa thập niên 1990, đặc biệt là ở Trung Đông và Bắc Phi.
Theo tổ chức có trụ sở ở New York, tổng cộng 179 phóng viên, nhà báo và cây bút hiện đang bị giam cầm trên thế giới, tăng 34 người so với năm ngoái.
Iran là nước có nhiều nhà báo bị bỏ tù nhất, với 42 người, trong khi chính phủ nước này theo CPJ đang "tăng cường chiến dịch sách nhiễu báo chí, vốn bắt đầu sau cuộc bầu cử tổng thống gây tranh cãi hơn hai năm trước đây".
"Eritrea, Trung Quốc, Miến Điện, Việt Nam, Syria và Thổ Nhĩ Kỳ cũng nằm trong danh sách các nước giam giữ nhiều nhà báo nhất."
CPJ ước tính con số các cây bút bị cầm tù ở Việt Nam tính tới thời điểm này là chín người.
Quan ngại về tính mạng
Danh sách các nhà báo tự do và blogger bị giam cầm ở Việt Nam bao gồm: ông Nguyễn Văn Hải, tức Điếu Cày; bà Phạm Thanh Nghiên, ông Phạm Minh Hoàng, ông Phan Thanh Hải, tức Anh Ba Sài Gòn; ông Lữ Văn Bảy; và nhóm người Công giáo Paulus Lê Sơn, Hồ Đức Hòa, Đặng Xuân Diệu và Nguyễn Văn Duyệt.
Hai người bị cầm tù lâu nhất là blogger Điếu Cày và Phạm Thanh Nghiên, trong khi nhóm các cây bút Công giáo trẻ mới bị bắt hồi tháng Tám năm nay.
Gia đình ông Nguyễn Văn Hải trong một phỏng vấn cách đây không lâu với BBC nói họ không nhận được tin tức gì từ ông, và lo lắng cho tính mạng của ông.
Thông tin chúng tôi chưa kiểm chứng được thì nói ông Hải vừa bị bệnh và phải nhập viện.
Trong khi đó, gần như không có chi tiết gì về bà Phạm Thanh Nghiên, người bị bắt hồi tháng 9/2008 và sau đó bị án tù bốn năm, cộng thêm ba năm quản chế.
Mới đây nhất, hôm 29/11, tòa phúc thẩm tại TP Hồ Chí Minh đã giảm án tù tội lật đổ cho giảng viên đại học Phạm Minh Hoàng xuống còn 17 tháng, cộng thêm 3 năm quản chế tại gia.
Ông Hoàng sẽ được ra tù vào giữa tháng 1/2012.
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Stark regional differences are seen as jailings grow significantly in the Middle East and North Africa. Dozens of journalists are held without charge, many in secret prisons. A CPJ special report
Published December 8, 2011
NEW YORK
The number of journalists imprisoned worldwide shot up more than 20 percent to its highest level since the mid-1990s, an increase driven largely by widespread jailings across the Middle East and North Africa, the Committee to Protect Journalists has found. In its annual census of imprisoned journalists, CPJ identified 179 writers, editors, and photojournalists behind bars on December 1, an increase of 34 over its 2010 tally.
The number of journalists imprisoned worldwide shot up more than 20 percent to its highest level since the mid-1990s, an increase driven largely by widespread jailings across the Middle East and North Africa, the Committee to Protect Journalists has found. In its annual census of imprisoned journalists, CPJ identified 179 writers, editors, and photojournalists behind bars on December 1, an increase of 34 over its 2010 tally.
Iran was the world’s worst jailer, with 42 journalists behind bars, as authorities kept up a campaign of anti-press intimidation that began after the country’s disputed presidential election more than two years ago. Eritrea, China, Burma, Vietnam, Syria, and Turkey also ranked among the world’s worst. (Read detailed accounts of each imprisoned journalist.)
CPJ’s census found stark differences among regions. For the first time since CPJ began compiling annual prison surveys in 1990, not a single journalist in the Americas was in jail for work-related reasons on December 1. Imprisonments also continued a gradual decline in Europe and Central Asia, where only eight journalists were jailed, the lowest regional tally in six years. But those improvements were swamped by large-scale jailings across the Middle East and North Africa, where governments were holding 77 journalists behind bars, a figure that accounted for nearly 45 percent of the worldwide total. Asian and African nations also accounted for dozens of imprisonments.
While Iran’s 2009 post-election crackdown marked the beginning of widespread press imprisonments there, authorities have maintained a revolving cell door since that time, freeing some detainees on furloughs even as they make new arrests. Journalists freed on furloughs often post six-figure bonds and endure severe political pressure to keep silent or turn on their colleagues. “The volume of arrests, interrogations, and people out on bail is enormous,” said Omid Memarian, an exiled Iranian journalist. “The effect is that many journalists know they should not touch critical subjects. It really affects the way they cover the news because they are under constant fear and intimidation.” Among the 2011 detainees is Iranian editor Mohammad Davari, a CPJ International Press Freedom Award winner whose website exposed the abuse and rape of inmates at the now-closed Kahrizak Detention Center. More than half of the Iranian detainees are being held on antistate charges similar to those lodged against Davari.
Antistate charges such as treason, subversion, or acting against national interests are the most common allegations brought against journalists worldwide. At least 79 journalists were being held on such charges, CPJ’s survey found.
But the 2011 census also found an alarming rise in the number of journalists held without charge or due process. Sixty-five journalists, accounting for more than a third of those in prison worldwide, were being held without any publicly disclosed charge, many of them in secret prisons without access to lawyers or family members. In some instances, governments such as those in Eritrea, Syria, and Gambia have denied the very existence of these jailed journalists. Reports of mistreatment and torture are common in these cases in which authorities operate without accountability and in contravention of international norms. Unconfirmed reports have identified at least six of these journalists as having died of mistreatment in custody. CPJ continues to list these detainees as it investigates the cases.
Imprisoning journalists without charge is practiced most commonly by the government of Eritrea, the world’s second worst jailer of the press with 28 behind bars. Although many have been jailed for a decade, not a single Eritrean detainee has ever been publicly charged with a crime. Those jailed include the Swedish-Eritrean editor Dawit Isaac, who has been held since the government shuttered the country’s independent press in 2001. Despite rising pressure from the European Parliament, Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki has made only vague assertions that Isaac made “a big mistake.”
In a number of countries, authorities have targeted journalists covering marginalized ethnic groups. Nowhere is this more evident than in China, where the government has ruthlessly cracked down on editors and writers who sought to give voice to the nation’s Tibetan and Uighur minority groups. Seventeen of the 27 journalists jailed in China covered oppressed ethnic groups. (Most of the others were online writers expressing dissident political views.) The detainees include Dokru Tsultrim, a monk whose news journal covered Tibetan affairs and who wrote critically about government policies toward Tibetans. Others may languish in China’s prison without coming to the notice of news organizations or advocacy groups. “We know so few of the names of people who have been detained or imprisoned for political crimes,” said John Kamm, chairman of the Dui Hua Foundation, a group that advocates for Chinese political prisoners.
Despite being widely credited for its reform plans, Burma’s new civilian government leaders have done little to change the severely repressive practices of their military predecessors. Authorities were jailing at least 12 journalists by December 1, a figure consistent with tallies over the past decade and one that is exceedingly high given the country’s size. The world’s fourth worst jailer of the press, the Burmese government is holding people such as Hla Hla Win, an undercover reporter for the exile-run Democratic Voice of Burma. She was arrested in 2009 while trying to report a piece marking the second anniversary of the Saffron Revolution, a series of monk-led demonstrations that was violently put down by government troops. “After politicians, journalists are the second main target,” said Zin Linn, an exiled Burmese journalist and vice president of the Thailand-based Burma Media Association. That hasn’t changed with the new government, he added. “I’m not expecting them to be released very quickly.”
An ongoing crackdown against online reporting and commentary made Vietnam the world’s fifth worst jailer. All nine of the Vietnamese journalists behind bars on December 1 were bloggers who covered politically sensitive topics or the affairs of religious minorities. Among the detainees was Pham Minh Hoang, a blogger who wrote about official corruption, environmental degradation, and perceived government foreign policy failures.
Worldwide, 86 journalists whose work appeared primarily online were in jail on December 1, constituting nearly half of the census. The proportion is consistent with those seen in CPJ’s previous two surveys, which had followed several years of significant increases in the numbers of imprisoned online journalists. Print journalists constituted the second largest professional group, with 51 jailed worldwide. The other detainees were from radio, television, and documentary filmmaking.
The number of journalists jailed in the Middle East and North Africa jumped by about 50 percent over last year. The increase came not only in nations such as Syria, where a repressive regime was jailing eight journalists in a desperate bid to retain power by suppressing independent reporting. Imprisonments were also reported in the stable democracy of Turkey, which was holding eight journalists when CPJ conducted its survey. While stepping up their past practice of imprisoning Kurdish editors and writers, authorities have also begun targeting mainstream journalists engaged in investigative reporting. The detainees in Turkey include Ahmet Şık and Nedim Şener, both prominent authors and newspaper journalists who critically probed government shortcomings. “After the imprisonment of these two journalists, it’s more threatening for all journalists,” said Erkan Saka, a political blogger and lecturer at Istanbul Bilgi University. “There is more self-censorship.”
Although the vast majority of detainees were local journalists being held by their own governments, eight international journalists were among those included on CPJ’s 2011 census. They include two Swedes, Johan Persson and Martin Schibbye, who were detained in Ethiopia while covering the activities of a separatist group. Seven journalists in all were being held in Ethiopia, five of them on vague and unsubstantiated terror charges. Despite international criticism, Ethiopia has aggressively expanded the use of its anti-terror law to criminalize news coverage of opposition groups. “It shows the government has no fear,” said Kassahun Yilma, an Ethiopian journalist who fled the country in 2009 when confronted with the prospect of imprisonment. Any critical Ethiopian reporter ends up facing the same dilemma, he said. “Should we stay at home and go to jail for nothing, or flee?”
CPJ confirmed the deaths of two journalists in Bahraini government custody. Karim Fakhrawi, a founder of the country’s leading independent newspaper Al-Wasat, and Zakariya Rashid Hassan al-Ashiri, editor of a local news website in his village of Al-Dair, died in Bahraini prisons within a week of each other in April. The government claimed the two died of natural causes, despite widespread allegations that abusive treatment led to their deaths.
Here are other trends and details that emerged in CPJ’s analysis:
The worldwide total is at its highest point since 1996, when CPJ recorded 185 journalists behind bars, a figure driven by Turkey’s suppression of ethnic Kurdish journalists. The increase over the 2010 tally was the biggest single-year jump in a decade.
At least 78 freelance journalists were in prison worldwide, constituting about 45 percent of the census, a proportion consistent with those seen in the previous two surveys. Freelance journalists can be vulnerable to imprisonment because they often do not have the legal and monetary support that news organizations can provide to staffers.
Antistate charges were the most common charge used to jail journalists. Violations of censorship rules, the second most common charge, were applied in 14 cases.
In 11 cases, governments used a variety of charges unrelated to journalism to retaliate against critical writers, editors, and photojournalists. Such charges range from drug possession to tax evasion. In the cases included in this census, CPJ has determined that the charges were most likely lodged in reprisal for the journalist’s work.
Charges of criminal defamation, reporting “false” news, and engaging in ethnic or religious “insult” constitute the other charges filed against journalists in the census.
For the first time in more than a decade, China did not lead or jointly lead the list of countries jailing journalists. That it was supplanted in 2011 was a reflection of the high numbers in Iran rather than a significant drop in China. The total of 27 journalists jailed in China on December 1 was consistent with figures documented over the past several years.
For the first time since 1996, no Cuban journalists appeared on CPJ’s census. The Cuban government was holding as many as 29 journalists in 2003, following a massive crackdown on dissent. The last of those detainees was freed in April 2011. Although no Cuban journalist was jailed on December 1, CPJ research shows that authorities continue to detain reporters and editors on a short-term basis as a form of harassment.
In the past year, CPJ advocacy led to the early release of at least 65 imprisoned journalists worldwide. Among those freed were two CPJ International Press Freedom Award winners: Cuban writer Héctor Maseda Gutiérrez and Azerbaijani editor Eynulla Fatullayev.
Two other CPJ awardees, Shi Tao in China and Davari in Iran, remained in jail on December 1. Shi was serving a 10-year prison term in China for divulging a propaganda department order that was retroactively declared a state secret.
CPJ believes that journalists should not be imprisoned for doing their jobs. The organization has sent letters expressing its serious concerns to each country that has imprisoned a journalist.
CPJ’s list is a snapshot of those incarcerated at midnight on December 1, 2011. It does not include the many journalists imprisoned and released throughout the year; accounts of those cases can be found at www.cpj.org. Journalists remain on CPJ’s list until the organization determines with reasonable certainty that they have been released or have died in custody.
Journalists who either disappear or are abducted by nonstate entities such as criminal gangs or militant groups are not included on the prison census. Their cases are classified as “missing” or “abducted.”
This report was compiled by CPJ staff with additional reporting by Kristin Jones.
Vietnam: 9
Nguyen Van Hai (Nguyen Hoang Hai), freelance
Imprisoned: April 19, 2008
Nguyen Van Hai was arrested and held without charge for five months, according to news reports. A closed court convicted him of tax evasion on September 10, 2008.
Hai, who also goes by the name Nguyen Hoang Hai, was an outspoken commentator on his political blog Dieu Cay (The Peasant’s Pipe). He was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for failing to pay 10 years of taxes on the part of a building he had rented to an optical shop. International news reports quoted his lawyer as saying the taxes should have been paid by the tenant, according to the rental agreement.
Several of Hai’s blog entries had touched on politically sensitive issues. He had reported on national protests against China, which disputed Vietnam’s claim to sovereignty over the nearby Spratly and Paracel islands. He also called for demonstrations against the Beijing Olympic torch relay, which was to pass through Ho Chi Minh City, according to the website of Viet Tan, an exiled pro-democracy organization.
In April 2009, Hai was transferred to the southern Cai Tau Prison, several hours from his home in Ho Chi Minh City, and was denied family visits, according to Viet Tan and international human rights groups. He was scheduled for release after serving his sentence on October 20, 2010, but authorities continued to detain him on the grounds that he was still under investigation.
According to the Free Journalists Network of Vietnam, his family filed 12 different formal requests, petitions, and appeals for visitation in 2011, none of which the authorities acknowledged. Canadian Embassy officials were also refused permission to visit Hai in prison, according to the network.
Pham Thanh Nghien, freelance
Imprisoned: September 13, 2008
A Haiphong city court sentenced online writer Pham Thanh Nghien on January 29, 2010, to four years in prison and three years of house arrest on charges of spreading antistate propaganda. She was first arrested when more than 20 police officers raided her home on September 13, 2008, during a government crackdown on dissidents. She was originally charged with staging a protest at her home, erecting banners protesting government policy in a maritime dispute involving China, and posting the images on the Internet.
State prosecutors dropped those initial charges and instead singled out an online article Nghien had written for foreign media in which she criticized public officials for siphoning off compensation funds intended for survivors of fishermen killed by Chinese maritime patrols in 2007, according to international news reports.
Nghien was also accused of criticizing the government in interviews with Western media outlets, including the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Asia. Her half-day trial was closed to foreign media and diplomats, news reports said. She was held in solitary confinement until her sentencing in January 2010.
On July 4, 2008, before her arrest, Nghien was severely beaten by four plainclothes police officers who threatened her and her family if she continued her outspoken criticism of government policies, according to Front Line, a human rights group. Nghien wrote several online articles in promotion of human rights, democracy, and better treatment of landless peasants, according to international news reports. She was being held at Thanh Liet Detention Center in Hanoi.
Pham Minh Hoang (Phan Kien Quoc), freelance
Imprisoned: August 13, 2010
Pham Minh Hoang, a university mathematics professor and political blogger associated with the exiled Viet Tan pro-democracy party, was first arrested in Ho Chi Minh City and charged under Article 79 of the penal code for activities aimed at overthrowing the government.
On August 10, 2011, Ho Chi Minh City’s People’s Court sentenced him to three years in prison and another three years of house arrest for “activities aimed at overthrowing the government,” according to local and international news reports. The prison term was later reduced on appeal to 17 months, according to Viet Tan.
The national security-related charges referred to 33 articles written under Hoang’s penname, Phan Kien Quoc, according to news reports. The entries focused on corruption, environmental degradation, and perceived government failures to protect the country’s territorial sovereignty from Chinese intervention, according to Viet Tan. The journalist was also convicted on charges of having membership in Viet Tan, an exile-run, pro-democracy party.
The courts ruled that the year Hoang spent in pre-trial detention at the Ministry of Public Security’s Detainment Center in Saigon District 1 would count against his sentence.
Phan Thanh Hai (Anh Ba Saigon), freelance
Imprisoned: October 18, 2010
Phan Thanh Hai, a political blogger who wrote under the penname Anh Ba Saigon, was first taken into custody on a provisional four-month detention while authorities conducted further investigation. He was held without formal charge throughout 2011.
Police raided his Ho Chi Minh City home, seizing computers, documents, and articles he had downloaded from the Internet, Agence France-Presse reported. According to his wife, Nguyen Thi Lien, police said they had evidence that he had written and published “false information” on his blog.
Hai’s blog often touched on issues considered sensitive by the Vietnamese authorities, including a scandal at state-run shipbuilder Vinashin, maritime and territorial disputes with China, and a controversial Chinese-supported bauxite mining project in the country’s Central Highlands.
On April 23, 2011, his wife and three children were allowed to visit him at Ho Chi Minh City’s Phan Dang Luu Detention Center but were not permitted to give him needed medications, according to a BBC report. No trial date had been set when CPJ completed its prison census on December 1, 2011.
Lu Van Bay (Tran Bao Viet), freelance
Imprisoned: March 26, 2011
Lu Van Bay, also known as Tran Bao Viet, was arrested after police raided his house and confiscated his computers and copies of his published articles, according to news reports. On August 22, 2011, he was sentenced by a court in southern Kien Giang province to four years in prison and three years of house arrest on charges of “conducting propaganda against the state,” a penal code offense.
The court’s judgment cited 10 articles Bay posted on overseas websites—including Dan Chim Viet (Vietnamese Birds), Do Thoa (Dialogue), and To Quoc (Fatherland)—that were critical of Vietnam’s one-party system and calledanor multi-party democracy.
Dang Xuan Dieu, freelance
Ho Duc Hoa, freelance
Ho Duc Hoa, freelance
Imprisoned: July 30, 2011
Dang Xuan Dieu and Ho Duc Hoa, religious activists and contributors to the news website Vietnam Redemptorist News, were detained on July 30 at Tan Son Nhat airport in Ho Chi Minh City. Vietnam Redemptorist News, an online publication run by the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, reports on the plight of the country’s persecuted Catholic minority.
Dieu and Hoa were detained on unspecified charges under Article 79 of the penal code, which outlines penalties for activities aimed at overthrowing the government. Under Vietnamese law, the maximum penalties for violations are life imprisonment or capital punishment. The two were both also accused of membership in the outlawed, exile-run Viet Tan party.
Dieu and Hoa were both being held at Hanoi’s B14 Detention Center, according to Viet Tan.
Paulus Le Van Son, freelance
Imprisoned: August 3, 2011
Paulus Le Van Son, a blogger and contributor to the news websites Vietnam Redemptorist News and Bao Khong Le (Newspaper Without Lanes), was arrested in front of his home in the capital, Hanoi. News reports, citing an eyewitness, said police knocked him from his motorcycle to the ground, grabbed his arms and legs, and threw him into a waiting police vehicle.
He was detained on unspecified charges under Article 79 the penal code, which outlines penalties for activities aimed at overthrowing the government. Under Vietnamese law, the maximum penalties for violations are life imprisonment or capital punishment. Son was also accused of membership in the outlawed, exile-run Viet Tan party.
Vietnam Redemptorist News, an online publication run by the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, reports on the plight of the country’s persecuted Catholic minority. Bao Khong Le focuses on issues such as corruption and sovereignty conflicts with China. In the months before his arrest, Son posted a number of sensitive entries to his own blog, addressing anti-China protests and territorial disputes with China.
Son had been briefly detained earlier, in April 2011, when he attempted to attend a court hearing for pro-democracy dissident Cu Huy Ha Vu. Son’s personal blog covered sensitive political and social issues, including anti-China demonstrations, government harassment of prominent pro-democracy and Catholic Church activists, and violence in schools.
Son was being held at Hanoi’s B14 Detention Center, according to news reports.
Nguyen Van Duyet, freelance
Imprisoned: August 7, 2011
Nguyen Van Duyet, a contributor to the news website Vietnam Redemptorist News and president of the Association of Catholic Workers, was detained in Vinh city, Nghe An province. Vietnam Redemptorist News, an online publication run by the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, reports on the plight of the country’s persecuted Catholic minority.
He was detained under Article 79 the penal code, which outlines penalties for activities aimed at overthrowing the government. Under Vietnamese law, the maximum penalties for violations are life imprisonment or capital punishment. Duyet was also accused of membership in the outlawed, exile-run Viet Tan party.
He was being held at Hanoi’s B14 Detention Center, Viet Tan reported.
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