Tạ Phong Tần
Born15 September 1968
Vĩnh Lợi District, Bạc Liêu Province, Vietnam
Occupations
  • Police officer (formerly)
  • Freelance journalist
OrganizationFree Vietnamese Journalists' Club
Known forDissident blogging against the Communist Party of Vietnam
Parents
  • Tưởng Năng Tiến[1]
  • Đặng Thị Kim Liên
AwardsInternational Women of Courage Award (2013)

Tạ Phong Tần (born 15 September 1968 in Vĩnh Lợi District, Bạc Liêu Province[2][3][4]) is a Vietnamese dissident blogger. A former policewoman and a member of the Communist Party of Vietnam, she was arrested in September 2011 on anti-state propaganda charges.[5][6] On 30 July, her mother immolated herself in front of the government offices in Bạc Liêu Province in protest of the charges against her daughter.[7] On 24 September 2012, Tạ Phong Tần was sentenced to ten years in prison. Her arrest was protested by groups including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the US State Department, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch.

Released after about 3 of 10 years of sentenced arrest and has traveled to the US, where she arrived on Saturday 20 September 2015, as US Foreign Ministry and CPJ (Committee to Protect Journalists) said.[8][9][10]

Blogging

When she began her blogging career, Tần worked as a policewoman.[11] In 2004, she became a freelance journalist.[12] Two years later, she started a blog titled Justice and Truth, which became popular for its reports on police abuses.[5][7][12] Because of these reports and the criticism on the web about the policies of the Communist Party of Vietnam, she was expelled from the Party and lost her job in 2006.[2][11]

Tạ Phong Tần was arrested in September 2011. She, along with fellow dissident bloggers Nguyễn Văn Hải and Phan Thanh Hải, had posted through the "Free Vietnamese Journalists' Club". The three were charged with writing anti-state propaganda.[5] The charges carried a maximum sentence of twenty years' imprisonment.[6] The Economist described the arrests as "the latest in a series of attempts by Vietnam's communist rulers to rein in the country's blossoming internet population."[13]

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights criticized the arrests, stating its concern for "what appears to be increasingly limited space for freedom of expression in Viet Nam".[14] In a July 2012 visit to Hanoi, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed concern for the detention of the three members of the Free Vietnamese Journalists' Club.[5] Amnesty International described the three as prisoners of conscience and urged their release.[15] The International Federation for Human Rights and World Organisation Against Torture also released a joint statement calling on the Vietnamese government to release the three bloggers unconditionally.[16]

Mother's self-immolation

On the morning of 30 July 2012, Tần's 64-year-old mother, Đặng Thị Kim Liên, set herself on fire outside the Bạc Liêu People's Committee in protest of her daughter's detention, one week before her trial was set to begin.[17][18] Lieng died of her burns en route to the hospital. The death was the first reported self-immolation in Vietnam since the 1970s.[18]

Vietnamese state media did not acknowledge the death for several days before stating that it would investigated.[18] An indefinite postponement was announced in Tan's trial.[19]

The US Embassy in Vietnam stated that it was "concerned and saddened" by the news, and reiterated its calls for the bloggers' release.[17] The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists called Lieng's death "a shocking reminder that Vietnam's campaign against bloggers and journalists exacts an unbearable emotional toll on the individuals involved."[20] Human Rights Watch called on the international community to address the underlying human rights situation, stating, "This is not just a tragedy for one family. This is a tragedy for the whole country."[3]

A large number of mourners journeyed to Lieng's home to pay respects in the week following her death, though many were reportedly intercepted on the roads by state security forces. The government also placed Lieng's mourners under surveillance by plainclothes police officers.[21]

Sentence

On 24 September 2012,[22] Tạ Phong Tần was sentenced to ten years in prison in a one-day hearing that The Economist compared to a Soviet Union show trial.[23] Prosecutors stated that the three had "distorted the truth about State and Party, created anxiety among citizens and supported schemes to overthrow the government", and the court found that they were "seriously affecting national security and the image of the country in the global arena."[23] Phan Thanh Hai, who had pleaded guilty, was sentenced to four years' imprisonment, and Nguyen Van Hai to twelve years.[23] The sentences were upheld by an appeals court on 28 December 2012.[24] In 2013, the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found Tan's detention to violate several articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.[25]

Awards

In December 2012, Tạ Phong Tần was one of 41 people to win a Hellman/Hammett award from Human Rights Watch, which recognizes writers suffering from political persecution.[26] In December 2012, Tần, together with Phạm Thanh Nghiên and Huỳnh Thục Vy, was awarded Vietnam Human Rights Award from Vietnam Human Rights Network. In 2013, she was named a winner of the International Women of Courage Award of the US State Department.[27] In the ceremony on International Women's Day, US Secretary of State John Kerry said of her, "For her dedication to continually demanding a better government for her people, for her willingness to take risks for her beliefs, and for her life experience and skills as a writer that serve as an inspiration to women in Vietnam, Tạ Phong Tần is a 2013 woman of courage."[28]

Personal life

Her conversion to Catholicism began due to a case where she defended 8 Thái Hà parishioners from Hanoi, after that case she began to get involved with the Redemptorists and other Catholics,[29] being baptized on June 14, 2009 at Kỳ Đồng Church[4] with the Christian name of Mary.[29]

References

  1. ↑ "ĐỨNG THẲNG LÀM NGƯỜI – (1,474 ngày trong nhà tù Cộng Sản Việt Nam) – Kỳ 155". 10 June 2017.
  2. 1 2 "Tạ Phong Tần - Người đàn bà và trang blog độc hại". CAND. 2010-07-15.
  3. 1 2 Cat Barton (30 July 2012). "Vietnam blogger's mother 'dies in self-immolation'". Agence France-Presse. Archived from the original on 1 August 2012. Retrieved 14 August 2012.
  4. 1 2 "THÁNH LỄ RỬA TỘI CHO MARIA TẠ PHONG TẦN". CÔNG LÝ và SỰ THẬT. 2009-01-07. Retrieved 2018-07-30.
  5. 1 2 3 4 "Vietnamese blogger's mother sets herself on fire as daughter faces trial". The Guardian. Associated Press. 31 July 2012. Archived from the original on 15 August 2012. Retrieved 14 August 2012.
  6. 1 2 "Vietnamese bloggers deny charges, third in leniency bid". BBC News. 16 April 2012. Archived from the original on 19 April 2012. Retrieved 14 August 2012.
  7. 1 2 "Mother of Vietnamese blogger 'burns herself to death'". BBC News. 30 July 2012. Archived from the original on 15 August 2012. Retrieved 14 August 2012.
  8. ↑ http://orf.at/#/stories/2300053/ Vietnam: Bloggerin frühzeitig aus Haft entlassen, orf.at (German) 21 September 2015, retrieved 21 September 2015.
  9. ↑ Reuters Vietnam frees anti-state blogger, U.S. calls for more releases, Reuters, edition U.S., Sun 20 Sept 2015, 06:08am EDT, retrieved 21 Sept 2015.
  10. ↑ https://cpj.org/2015/09/cpj-welcomes-release-of-vietnamese-blogger-ta-phon.php#more CPJ welcomes release of Vietnamese blogger Ta Phong Tan, New York 20 Sept 2015, retrieved 21 Sept 2015.
  11. 1 2 "Ngoại trưởng Mỹ tặng giải bà Tạ Phong Tần". BBC. 7 March 2013.
  12. 1 2 Michael Lipin (30 July 2012). "Mother of Detained Vietnamese Blogger Self-Immolates". Voice of America. Archived from the original on 1 August 2012. Retrieved 14 August 2012.
  13. ↑ "An odd online relationship". The Economist. 9 August 2012. Archived from the original on 25 September 2015. Retrieved 14 August 2012.
  14. ↑ "UN concerned at shrinking space for freedom of expression in Viet Nam". United Nations. 3 August 2012. Archived from the original on 28 September 2019. Retrieved 14 August 2012.
  15. ↑ "Viet Nam: Halt crackdown on freedom of expression". Amnesty International. 7 August 2012. Archived from the original on 8 August 2012. Retrieved 14 August 2012.
  16. ↑ "Viet Nam: Pro-democracy bloggers face harsh penalties in upcoming trial". World Organization Against Torture. 14 August 2012. Archived from the original on 14 August 2012. Retrieved 14 August 2012.
  17. 1 2 "Vietnam blogger's mom self-immolates before trial". Kansas City Star. Associated Press. 31 July 2012. Archived from the original on 15 August 2012. Retrieved 14 August 2012.
  18. 1 2 3 Kamila Shamsie (5 August 2012). "Vietnam's blog shame". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 15 August 2012. Retrieved 14 August 2012.
  19. ↑ "Vietnam Probes Self-Immolation of Blogger's Mother". ABC News. Associated Press. 3 August 2012. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 14 August 2012.
  20. ↑ "Imprisoned blogger's mother self-immolates in Vietnam". Committee to Protect Journalists. 30 July 2012. Archived from the original on 7 August 2012. Retrieved 14 August 2012.
  21. ↑ Khanh An (2 August 2012). "Authorities Watch Mourners". Radio Free Asia. Archived from the original on 25 September 2015. Retrieved 14 August 2012.
  22. ↑ "Vietnam jails dissident bloggers". BBC. 24 September 2012.
  23. 1 2 3 L.H. (4 October 2012). "Bloggers flogged". The Economist. Archived from the original on 31 October 2012. Retrieved 30 October 2012.
  24. ↑ "Court appeal of dissident Vietnam bloggers is rejected". BBC News. 28 December 2012. Archived from the original on 3 January 2013. Retrieved 2 January 2013.
  25. ↑ "Opinions adopted by the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention at its sixty-seventh session, 26-30 August 2013 – No. 26/2013 (Viet Nam)". undocs.org. United Nations. A/HRC/WGAD/2013/26. Retrieved 17 March 2017.
  26. ↑ "Vietnamese Bloggers Recognized for Commitment to Rights: 5 Win Prestigious Hellman/Hammett Awards". States News Service. 20 December 2012. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 12 April 2013 – via HighBeam Research.
  27. ↑ Rachel Vandenbrink (8 March 2013). "Jailed Vietnamese Blogger Named 'Woman of Courage'". Radio Free Asia. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 9 March 2013.
  28. ↑ "Remarks at the International Women of Courage Awards". US Department of State. 8 March 2013. Retrieved 9 March 2013.
  29. 1 2 "Tạ Phong Tần: Hà Nội đã sai lầm khi thả tôi ra khỏi tù". Radio Free Asia (in Vietnamese). Retrieved 2018-07-31.
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