Blogger "Mother Mushroom" jailed for 10 years

A prominent Vietnamese blogger known as "Mother Mushroom" received a 10-year prison sentence after a brief trial that rights groups called "outrageous" Thursday. The blogger gets her pen name from her daughter's nickname.

Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh was arrested in October 2016 then charged with anti-state propaganda over Facebook posts critical of the government. 

The "Nam's" one-party state doesn't allow for dissent and routinely jails activists, bloggers and even lawyers who speak out against the communist regime. [Put that in your bongs and smoke it, commie lovers].

The 37-year-old woman had a closed-door trial and could have faced a maximum of 12 years, but the 10-year sentence was still quite "harsh," according to her lawyer. 

"I am not happy with the result of the trial today," Nguyen Kha Thanh told AFP. 

Quynh will appeal.

The press was barred from attending the one-day trial in Khanh Hoa province, which was heavily guarded by police, according to social media.

"Mother Mushroom" was calm throughout the trial, her lawyer said. In a pre-sentence statement, she admitted no guilt but instead used the opportunity to send a message to her two children and mother. "She apologized to her mother and the two kids for what effect this has had on them, but she said they must be very proud of her," Thanh told AFP.

Quynh was charged under Article 88 of Vietnam's criminal code and held incommunicado with no access  to an attorney until June 20, according to Thanh.

She has been a vocal critic of Vietnam's human rights record and civilian deaths in police custody. She has also been critical of the government's handling of a toxic leak that killed tons of fish last year.

Her arrest came October 10 last year while visiting a fellow activist in prison.

In the verdict, the judge said Quynh had defamed the government, harmed national security, eroded popular trust of the government and undermined national security.

The conviction included her publishing of alleged inaccurate information to humiliate the police and erode public trust in them based on her reports regarding police brutality.

"The scandal here is not what Mother Mushroom said, but Hanoi's stubborn refusal to repeal draconian, rights-abusing laws that punish peaceful dissent and tarnish Vietnam's international reputation," Phil Robertson, Human Rights Watch deputy Asia director said in a statement Wednesday. 

The United States, the European Union and Britain have called for Quynh's release.

Quynh received the International Woman of Courage Award from the US State Department in March, which Vietnam said was "not appropriate and of no benefit for the development of relations between the two countries."

She also was award the Civil Rights Defender of the Year by a Sweden-based international advocacy group in 2015.

She is not an advocate of fake news.


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Anti-Semitic leftist blogger arrested for allegedly making bomb threats

A leftist anti-Semitic writer for several liberal blogs was arrested by the FBI on Friday morning as it investigates the many bomb threats that have occurred against Jewish community centers across the country. They explained that the man made some of the threats in the name of an ex-girlfriend as his way to exact revenge on her.

Juan Thompson, 31, has been charged with cyberstalking and making no less than eight separate bomb threats against Jewish organizations. 

Thompson is from St. Louis Missouri and worked for Glenn Greenwald's The Intercept. He also wrote for some of the popular liberal blogs such as Daily Kos. 

The FBI alleges that the bomb threats were made in connection with Thompson's anger over the breakup of his romantic relationship after which he allegedly embarked on "a sustained campaign to harass and intimidate" the woman in question. 

The harassment including making four bomb threats in her name and then four in his own name, with the intention of misleading the public into believing she was behind it all in a campaign against him.

Thompson has stayed off social media for the last three days. His last tweets were about a "white nasty woman" who "filed a false lie" (are there any true lies?) against him, an African-American. 

His tweets also referenced a visit by the Secret Service over some of "his politics" and online behavior.

Thompson was terminated from The Intercept for making up large portions of a feature about Dylann Roof, the white supremacist gunman who, on June 17, 2005 executed nine people in a Charleston church.

Although there have been about 100 bombing threats against Jewish community centers this year in the U.S., law enforcement doesn't believe that Thompson is behind the majority of those--it was likely other anti-Semitic liberals or neo-Nazi scum.

At the time he was arrested, Thompson apparently was working for the Gateway Housing Foundation, a non-profit that provides "affordable, safe and secure housing." 


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