By AP
HANOI- A VIETNAMESE journalist and democracy activist went on trial for alleged assault on Friday as authorities continued a crackdown on dissent in which 16 people have been sent to prison in just over three months.
Tran Khai Thanh Thuy, 49, has been active in Vietnam's small democracy movement, which has promoted political pluralism in a country where the Communist government does not tolerate political competition.
Human rights groups have described the case against Thuy as a perversion of justice in which undercover police watched thugs attack her - and then charged Thuy with assault.
Thuy's supporters say that on Oct 8, police prevented her from attending the trial of democracy activists in the northern city of Haiphong. That evening, prosecutors allege that Thuy and her husband, Do Ba Tan, assaulted two people after one of them complained that Tan's motorbike was blocking the alley outside the couple's home in Hanoi.
Prosecutors say Tan bashed one of the victims in the face with his motorbike helmet and Thuy threw bricks at them and beat them with a stick.
US-based Human Rights Watch says the couple were roughed up by thugs who were waging ongoing harassment of Thuy. 'Charging the victim of a beating with assault is yet another example of Vietnam's Kafkaesque efforts to silence government critics,' Brad Adams, Asia director for Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. 'The thugs who attacked her, the people who sent them, and the police officers who refused to intervene should all be brought to justice.'
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