Vietnam court upholds 9-year jail sentence for democracy activist
A Vietnamese court has upheld a nine-year prison term for prominent human rights campaigner and writer Pham Doan Trang, who was convicted of anti-state activities, her lawyers and state media said.
On Thursday, the Hanoi People’s High Court rejected Trang’s appeal of a sentence handed down in December at a tightly controlled trial in the capital.
Trang, 44, a journalist-turned-activist who widely published material on human rights and alleged police brutality in Vietnam, was convicted of “conducting propaganda against the state”.
“Trang argued that the initial trial in December didn’t follow domestic legal procedures and international [treaties] … but the court insisted that there was no foundation to accept her appeals,” her lawyer Dang Dinh Manh said.
AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
