Nguyen Van Hoa, a Vietnamese blogger who was arrested for reporting on a 2016 environmental disaster, was sentenced this week (Nov. 27) to seven years in prison for “propaganda against the state” in Vietnam’s Ha Tinh province.
The News Lens
Date: 2017/12/01
By: Morley J Weston
Citizen journalists will be in jail well into the 2020s for reporting on the incident.
Credit: AP
He joins Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison earlier this year.
The disaster in question was created by an incident at a steel plant owned by Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Corporation, a subsidiary of Taiwan’s Formosa Plastics. The Vietnamese labor ministry estimated that over 250,000 Vietnamese citizens were affected by the incident, which dirtied over 200 kilometers of coastline with cyanide and other bi-products of steel production. Formosa was also accused of burying waste on farms and in public parks. The local environment is not expected to recover for a decade, and the disaster set of a cascade of anti-government protests, some of the largest in Vietnam in decades, leading to a government crackdown of over 500 arrests.
Human rights groups felt that Taiwan could have helped protect those affected by the disaster. Andrea Giorgetta, director of Asia desk of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) told The News Lens, “Taiwan should use its economic leverage on Hanoi and ensure its New Southbound Policy encompasses a human rights dimension. All economic agreements signed as part of this policy should include due diligence and human right impact assessments to help prevent rights abuses, including violations of civil and political rights.” [FULL STORY]