German SPD Demands Unconditional Release of Prominent Vietnamese Blogger Me Nam

Blogger Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, the 2015 recipient of the Civil Rights Defender of the Year Award of the Stockholm-based Civil Rights Defenders

By Defend the Defenders, December 24, 2016

The parliamentary group of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, or SPD) demanded the immediate and unconditional release of prominent Vietnamese blogger Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, also known as Me Nam or Mother Mushroom, who was arrested on October 10 on allegations that she conducted anti-state propaganda under Article 88 of Vietnam’s Penal Code.

The SPD’s parliamentary group is extremely worried about the prison conditions of blogger Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh. She has not been granted a right to meet with her two minor children and other family members. She also has been denied access to legal counsel. Ms. Quynh has not committed any crime, but has only exercised her right to freedom of opinion and expression, said Frank Schwabe, human rights policy spokesman of the group in a press release dated December 22.

Mr. Schwabe unveiled that German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Commissioner of the Federal Government for Human Rights Dr. Bärbel Kofler were also working for her release.

Ms. Quynh, well-known for her activities on environmental issues and police power abuses, was included in the program called “parliamentarian protect parliamentarians”, through which members of the German Bundestag set to protect threatened parliamentarians, politicians and human rights defenders, Mr. Schwabe noted.

The SPD is a social-democratic political party in Germany. The party, led by Chairman Sigmar Gabriel since 2009, is one of the two major current political parties in the European country, along with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). It has governed at the federal level in Germany as part of a grand coalition with the CDU and the Christian Social Union (CSU) since December 2013 following the results of the 2013 federal election. The SPD participates in 14 state governments, nine of them governed by SPD Minister-Presidents.

The SPD is also a member of the Party of European Socialists and of the Socialist International, and became a founding member of the Progressive Alliance on 22 May 2013.

Established in 1863, the SPD is the oldest extant political party represented in the German Parliament, and was one of the first Marxist-influenced parties in the world.

Meanwhile, Ms. Quynh, the 2015 recipient of the Civil Rights Defender of the Year Award of the Stockholm-based Civil Rights Defenders, has been held incommunicado since October 10. You can read more about her in older reports on our website: /category/nguyen-ngoc-nhu-quynh-me-nam/

The U.S., the EU and many democratic governments as well as international human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have called on Vietnam to free Quynh immediately and unconditionally.

The story was written based on SPD’s press release: Vietnamesische Bloggerin Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh frei lassen