SINGAPORE: A group of 8 Hmong have been sentenced to prison for protests last year that demanded autonomy for the ethnic minority group, the state media reported on Wednesday. Two men received 30-month jail terms while 6 others were sentenced to two years for disturbing public security and order at a one-day trial in Dien Bien province Tuesday, Phap Luat newspaper reported. The men were accused of pressuring local authorities to establish their own “Hmong kingdom” in Muong Nha District, a remote border region near Laos and China. The accused, most of them illiterate, told the court that they did not know their activities were illegal, Viet Nam News Agency said. In Hanoi, Pham Nguyen, a professor of economics and a researcher into the Hmong community, told Bikyamasr.com that “this sort of case shows how much the Vietnamese government fears protest movements and will do what they can to silence opposition.” BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/HoVsj Tags: Hmong, Jail, Protest, Vietnam Section: East Asia, Latest News
