State Firing
of Vietnamese Editors Latest Sign of Shrinking Press Freedom in SE Asia
January 05, 2009 02:14 PM
by findingDulcinea Staff
Vietnamese authorities
continue to tighten control over the media, a troubling trend that is persisting
in the region and worldwide.
Nguyen Cong Khe, editor in
chief of the newspaper Thanh Nien and Le Hoang, who edited the publication Tuoi
Tre, were fired just months after two of their reporters had gone on trial over
their coverage of a major government corruption case, and both papers had been
leaders in investigating graft.
Vietnam’s Communist authorities have in recent months been tightening control of
the media, which has long been under strict government monitoring, with a new
policy to crack down on both state-run media and the blogosphere. Two other
publications, Legality and Saigon Business People, lost their editors-in-chief
in December.
Bloggers in particular, who have become more and more daring in criticizing the
authorities and writing about controversial topics that are not covered by the
state-run media, are the target of one new law, which bans them from discussing
“politically sensitive subjects” and requires that they reveal all of their
sources. Those who violate the rules face up to $12,000 in fines or jail time.
International watchdog organization Reporters Without Borders has named Vietnam
one of 13 countries that are “enemies of the Internet” and, according to PBS,
Vietnam had nine cyber-dissidents in detention in December.
One student blogger, who goes by the Internet alias “Mr. Cold,” holds strong
antigovernment views. “They (state media) decide what we will hear, what we will
read and what we will see,” he said. “They are slaves of the communists.”