Vietnamese Blogger Jailed

On March 29, 2017, Vietnamese blogger Me Nam was presented with the “International Women of Courage” award by the US State Dept. and presented by First Lady Melania Trump. 
Me Nam was jailed In October 2016, when she was visiting other jailed Vietnamese bloggers. The arrest separated her from her 11-year-old daughter and 5-year old son. 
Exactly 90 days after the First Lady’s presentation, Me Nam was convicted in a sham trial and sentenced to 10 years in prison for “distributing propaganda against the State”. 
The case is an example of the brutal, totalitarian communist regime that has governed Vietnam since the US abandoned it in on April 30, 1975. 
Me Nam is a founding member of the Vietnamese Blogger Network. Since 2006 she has tirelessly covered topics including human rights violations, land confiscation, widespread police brutality, exposing corruption, and environmental protection.
She has taken part in peaceful protests against Chinese encroachment in the South China Sea, and against Formosa Steel for discharging toxic wastes into the sea in Central Vietnam causing massive fish kills.
In 2010, she won a Hellman-Hammet grant as a writer defending freedom of expression and was named 2015 Civil Rights Defender of the year.
A coalition of Vietnam interest groups and Vietnamese politicians has mounted a petition on Change.org calling on the First Lady, and President Trump to revisit the case of Me Nam and demand her immediate and unconditional release so that she can be reunited with her children who are currently being cared for by her mother.