Vietnamese Publishing House Co-Founder Arrested

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From Publishing Perspectives:

Scheduled to address an October 15 discussion at Frankfurter Buchmesse on the freedom to publish, a co-founder of the 2020 Prix Voltaire-winning Liberal Publishing House has been arrested. An alert from Amnesty International issued within an hour of this writing warns that Pham Doan Trang is “at grave risk of torture.”

Amnesty’s director of campaigns, Ming Yu Hah, says that Pham Doan Trang “may face up to 20 years in prison” as “an internationally-recognized author and human rights defender who has been repeatedly targeted by the Vietnamese authorities solely for peacefully exercising her right to freedom of expression.”

. . . .

One of the participants in the upcoming event at Frankfurt, Will Nguyen, has tweeted out a letter left by Pham Doan Trang in case of her detention. In “Just in Case I Am Imprisoned,” she writes, in part, “If prison is inevitable for freedom fighters, if prison can serve a pre-determined purpose, then we should happily accept it.”

. . . .

“The men and women who work for the Liberal Publishing House every day risk their freedom and even their lives just to publish books. The award that we receive today does not just recognize our tireless efforts but it represents the bravery of tens of thousands of Vietnamese readers who have been harassed, who have been arrested, and interrogated simply for reading our books.”

Link to the rest at Publishing Perspectives

PG suggests we all remember Pham Doan Trang in our thoughts and prayers and be thankful that many of us live in countries like the United States whose First Amendment to its Constitution reads as follows:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

and the European Union, within which Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights applies. Article 11 reads as follows:

Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.

This also means the freedom and pluralism of the media shall be respected.

PG was going to insert similar statements concerning freedom of expression in the UK and Canada, but his research did not locate any similar statement that does not include some parliamentary or judge-made exceptions.

It appears that libel and slander laws (which are also present in the United States) have been and, apparently, continue to be usable as a bludgeon to constrain freedom of expression to a greater extent than similar laws can be applied for such purposes in the US.

PG is happy to be corrected or have his understanding clarified by those who know more about this subject in Canada and the UK.