Báo Úc The Sydney Morning Heralds đăng tin vụ xử 6 thành viên Hội Anh Em Dân Chủ

CTM Media – Ngày hôm nay, tờ báo The Sydney Morning Herald tại Úc đã đăng một bản tin ngắn về việc nhà nước CSVN đem xử sơ thẩm 6 thành viên của Hội Anh Em Dân Chủ (HAEDC) vào ngày mai, Thứ Năm 5 Tháng 4, 2018.

Bản tin nhắc đến Luật sư Nguyễn Văn Đài, người đồng sáng lập HAEDC, cùng với 5 thành viên khác là Phạm Văn Trội, Trương Minh Đức, Nguyễn Bắc Truyển, Nguyễn Trung Tôn và Lê Thu Hà.

Bản tin nói HAEDC cung cấp dịch vụ pháp luật cho các nhà đấu tranh dân chủ cũng như tranh đấu cho tự do tôn giáo và nhân quyền ở Việt Nam.

Bản tin nhắc đến lời phát biểu của ông Brad Adams, Giám Đốc Khu Vực Á Châu của tổ chức Quan Sát Nhân Quyền là “Tội duy nhất của những nhà hoạt động này là đã tranh đấu không ngưng nghỉ cho dân chủ cũng như bênh vực những nạn nhân bị lạm dụng nhân quyền”

Bản tin nhắc đến việc một số tổ chức dân chủ bao gồm Phóng Viên Không Biên Giới, Đảng Việt Tân, Phong Trào Lao Động Việt, Nhóm Nguyễn Kim Điền đã lên án cách hành xử của nhà nước CSVN đối với 6 thành viên HAEDC.

Duới đây là nguyên văn bản tin bằng tiếng Anh:

Vietnam finally puts six human rights activists on trial

By James Massola
4 April 2018 — 2:55pm

Jakarta: Six Vietnamese rights activists, including a prominent human rights lawyer arrested way back in 2015, will finally appear in the People’s Court of Hanoi on Thursday.

The six men, including Brotherhood for Democracy co-founder and lawyer Nguyen Van Dai, have been charged with “carrying out activities that aim to overthrow the people’s administration”.

The Brotherhood for Democracy offers legal assistance to activists in Vietnam and agitates for democracy, greater religious freedoms and human rights in Vietnam.

Vietnam has undergone sweeping social change in recent years, with the size of the middle class growing and the economy increasingly open to the world. It is an increasingly close partner of Australia, the United States and some other ASEAN countries as a strategic balance to China’s rise.

However, the communist government retains tight control on the media.

Nguyen and his colleague Le Thu Ha were originally charged with conducting propaganda against the state when arrested back in December 2015.

Just a day before his arrest, Nguyen had met with European Union delegates and participated in a dialogue with Vietnam on human rights. He and Ha were held in detention for 20 months after arrest, without access to legal counsel, according to Human Rights Watch.

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has also condemned Nguyen’s treatment at the hands of Vietnamese authorities in a 2017 report. The UN group argued the human rights lawyer and blogger had faced harassment, surveillance, imprisonment and acts of violence for over 10 years for undertaking his work in Vietnam and that his detention was arbitrary.

In July 2017, the charges against Nguyen and Ha were changed to attempting to overthrow the Vietnamese government.

At the same time four other men – Pham Van Troi, Nguyen Trung Ton, Truong Minh Duc and Nguyen Bac – were arrested and the same charge of carrying out activities to overthrow the government was made against them.

Human Rights Watch Asia director Brad Adams condemned the detention and trial of the six men, who are unlikely to escape sanction.

“The only crime that these activists have committed is to campaign tirelessly for democracy and defend victims of human rights abuses,” Adams said.

A broad coalition of other pro-democracy groups including Reporters Sans Frontieres, Viet Tan, Viet Labor Movement and the Nguyen Kim Dien Priests group has also condemned the treatment of the six men.

Source: https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/vietnam-finally-puts-six-human-rights-activists-on-trial-20180404-p4z7oh.html