Nguyen Tien Trung.

Monday morning. I had prepared a blog that would hopefully bring cheer but it will have to wait.

I blog roughly every five days; some of you out there blog daily. Many bloggers from the top downwards, ourselves included are often 'full of it', self indulgent and self opinionated, basking in the attention we create. It is so easy to become quite giddy at our perceived 'fame'.

We try to amuse, inform, educate, impress, a little voice in the great big world. Some sail close to the wind, offering blogs of great humour but often provocative, using words of which our grannies would not have approved and offering ideas than would have been unacceptable not all that long ago. Some offer great knowledge to a world that is eager for their pronouncements, wit and wisdom. Or so we hope.

Then there are the political blogs of varied persuasion, almost unreal individuals oblivious to the real world, their incessant, inane rambling designed to convert us to their own, often perverse political opinion. The top three in our beloved countries political blogs purports to be Guido Fawkes, Ian Dale and Spectator Coffee House, though quite frankly, who cares.
So what, you may be asking, is he on about! Please allow me to tell you the reason for this blog.
Whether your or my blogs are senile, boring, vitriolic, unpatriotic, uninformed, crass, puerile, biased, infantile, inspired, groundbreaking or even world shattering, we are allowed to publish all the same. That is the rule in the civilised world.

Nguyen Tien Trung. Remember the name. Nguyen is a twenty six year old Vietnamese blogger. Whilst you read this he is in the first week of a sixteen year sentence for daring to post anti-government views on his blog. The prosecution gave no evidence to support the indictment, the judge deliberated for only fifteen minutes. He has already been in prison since July 2009, at one stage death by firing squad even seemed a possibility.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that it is the fundamental right of all persons to hold opinions and freely express them. (From the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [ICCPR] of which Vietnam is a member.)

Continue to enjoy your blogging, for life must go on. But please remember Nguyen the next time you blog, and in your prayers tonight.