Vietnam jails three ethnic minority people for staging anti-government protests
A court in Vietnam's restive Central Highlands sentenced three hilltribe people up to eight years in jail for staging anti-government protests, a court official said Tuesday.
Ksor Alik of the Jarai ethnic minority group was sentenced to eight years on charges of "undermining national unity policy" at the end of the one-day trial Monday in Gia Lai province, a People's Court official said on condition of anonymity.
Alik's two accomplices were each given seven years behind bars for the same charges, he said.
The provincial court official said the three, under instruction from a Vietnamese "reactionary organization" in exile in the United States, instigated villagers to participate in anti-government protests until they were arrested late last year.
The provinces of Gia Lai, some 550 kilometers (342 miles) northeast of Ho Chi Minh City, and neighboring Daklak were scenes of massive anti-government protests during Easter weekend last year and in 2001 when members of ethnic minority groups, mostly Christians, took to the streets to protest the communist government's restrictions on their religion and the confiscation of their ancestral lands.
More than a thousand people fled to Cambodia following government crackdowns after the protests and many have since resettled in the United States and Finland. Dozens of ethnic minority people have been jailed for allegedly organizing protests or staging the exodus of refugees.
The Associated Press - May 31, 2005.
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