Special Issue: Mong Palatino brings an access to information focus to his latest regional brief, based on IFEX member reports and news from the region.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) welcomes the recent release of independent Vietnamese journalist Mai Phan Loi 18 months before the end of his sentence, and urges for the release of the 39 other journalists and press freedom defenders detained in the country.
Fine, noxious dusts of unknown origins are invading over 1,000 homes in central Quang Ngai Province’s Dung Quat economic zone. - VnExpress International
State Media
An appeals court in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City on Friday upheld harsh prison terms handed down last year to four activists convicted of planning protests on Vietnam’s National Day on Sept. 2, 2018.
Arrested in September 2018, the four were part of a group of eight named by police as members of the Hien Phap (Constitution) Group, a network of activists formed on June 16, 2017 to call for the rights to freedom of speech and assembly promised under Article 25 of Vietnam’s Constitution.
All eight were convicted of “disturbing security” under Article 118 of Vietnam’s 2015 Penal Code, and were sentenced on July 31, 2020 to prison terms ranging from two years and six months to eight years in a trial from which family members were barred.