At the beginning of the year, a Vietnamese author/democracy activist who often criticised Vietnam’s government was sentenced after a trial that lasted just half a day. You know something is pretty messed up when someone who is spreading the word about Democracy is jailed and charged with “spreading propaganda against the state” and sentenced to four years in prison. According to reports, she was the latest in a long line of arrests for similar ‘violations.’ Al Jazeera reported, Pham Thanh Nghien was “the 14th Vietnamese democracy activist to face trial in the last three months as authorities continue a crackdown on dissent.”

At the trial, Nghien admitted that she had in  fact committed the acts she was being charged with, but insisted that they were not illegal.

This whole situation scares me. I was in Vietnam in 2008 (the year Nghien was arrested) and it sends shivers down my spine. While walking around Ho Chi Minh, there were communist flags on almost every tree and yet I didn’t give much thought to what kind of oppression this could lead to.  I guess we kind of take for granted how many civil liberties we have in Canada and the United States. There is always room for improvement, but when you look at more oppressive states and governments that view democracy as something so ‘dangerous’  that it can land you in jail, it kind of puts things into perspective. At least for me.

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