Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui

GENEVA - Campaigners urged the UN Human Rights Council Friday to take Vietnam to task over its jailing of dozens of cyber-dissidents, claiming Hanoi was in breach of international law.

A Vietnamese journalist said Wednesday he had been fired from his state-run newspaper after criticising the head of the ruling Communist Party in a personal blog.

Two prominent Vietnamese democracy and human rights advocates, Thich Quang Do and Nguyen Van Ly, have been nominated for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize. This is encouraging news for a long-suffering people whose oppression is little reported.

A court in Vietnam has sentenced a man to life in prison and given jail terms of up to 17 years to other defendants after they were found guilty of "subversive activities", according to the state-run Vietnam Television.

HANOI - In one of Vietnam's largest subversion trials for years, 22 members of a little-known "reactionary" group appeared in court Monday charged with trying to overthrow the communist government, a clerk said.

HANOI - Two prominent Vietnamese dissident bloggers on Friday lost their appeals against long prison sentences for "anti-state propaganda", a lawyer said, despite international calls for their release.

Huynh Trong Hieu detained on his way to receive human rights award on behalf of father and sister, also prominent bloggers

Hanoi - A Vietnamese court on Wednesday upheld a dissident blogger’s six-year jail term, his lawyer said, the latest in a string of tough sentences for anti-government activists in the authoritarian nation.

Vietnam sentenced two songwriters to several years in prison Tuesday for posting songs online that a court judged to be antigovernment propaganda, the latest convictions in a mounting crackdown against online dissent in the communist country.

HANOI - A Vietnamese court sentenced three high-profile bloggers to jail terms ranging from four to 12 years on Monday, in the latest crackdown on dissent as booming internet usage threatens to undermine the communist government's authority.

Vietnamese officials are stepping up repression of old and new media even as they promote an image of an open, globalized economy. Intense surveillance and imprisonment of critical journalists, coupled with increasingly restrictive laws, are choking the flow of information.

HANOI — A Vietnamese journalist who bribed a police officer as part of an undercover investigation into corruption was sentenced to four years in prison on Friday, while the officer who accepted the money got a five-year sentence, state-controlled media reported.

HANOI - Three well known Vietnamese bloggers face prosecution for "propaganda against the state" after being accused of posting political articles on a banned website, state media said Sunday.

HANOI — A court in central Vietnam sentenced the pastor of an outlawed Mennonite church to 11 years in prison for sowing division between the communist government and its citizens, state-controlled media reported Tuesday.