Vietnam court convicts dissident Facebook user

HANOI — A Vietnamese Facebook user was yesterday sentenced to 15 months house arrest for “abusing” his freedom by campaigning online for the release of his brother, who was jailed for criticising the government.

A court in Long An province ruled that Dinh Nhat Uy’s (picture) Facebook effort to overturn his brother’s conviction in May last year for anti-state propaganda fell foul of the same law — one that activists and Western governments say is being used to silence critics of Vietnam’s one-party, communist rule.

The government, however, suspended the sentence and Uy was released from detention.

The indictment of Uy was the first related to the use of Facebook in Vietnam, which has strict laws governing use of the Internet. In its verdict, the court said Uy had abused “the freedoms of an ordinary citizen that disrupted the government, government officials, organisations and other citizens”, according to Uy’s lawyer Ha Huy Son.

Facebook is hugely popular, accessible to most of the country’s estimated 30 million Internet users, or about a third of the population. News of the verdict spread quickly over the social networking site, with many people using the opportunity to post critical commentary.

Discontent over graft, land ownership laws and the government’s handling of a slowing economy has driven many to air their grouses online.

Uy’s sentence was, however, one of the most lenient handed down by courts in Vietnam for breaches of Article 258 of the Criminal Code. Though free speech is enshrined in the Constitution, activists and bloggers brave enough to criticise the authorities have been jailed for up to four-and-a-half years.

Uy’s brother, Dinh Nguyen Kha, was jailed for eight years by the same court for anti-state propaganda when he handed out leaflets critical of policies on land ownership, religion and sovereignty disputes with China over the South China Sea. An appeal court in August commuted that to four years.

Vietnamese courts have convicted and imprisoned at least 46 bloggers or democracy activists this year on national security charges, more than twice the number last year.

Foreign governments, led by the United States, and international rights groups have criticised the crackdown and called for the activists’ release. Agencies