Human rights activist must be 15 years in prison

hanoi - The Vietnamese human rights activist and jurist Nguyen Van Dai has been sentenced to fifteen years in prison in a lightning-fast show trial and five years in prison. The 48-year-old Dai was condemned in the communist one-party state of Vietnam because he 'developed activities aimed at overthrowing the people's government.' His lawyer called it extraordinarily severe punishment.

In the trial that lasted one day, five other critics of the government were sentenced to cell sentences ranging from seven to twelve years on Thursday. Four of them also received house arrest for years on top of the prison sentence.

Nguyen Van Dai set up a Vietnamese human rights committee in 2006. He was soon arrested because of 'propaganda against the state. 'In 2013 he started a democratic network that he called Brotherhood for Democracy and that works for human rights and for support to political prisoners.

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