The Vietnamese press is no longer the "monolithic propaganda machine" it once was, and dozens of lively new publications have sprung up in recent years.30 Most of the new publications, however, focus on sports, entertainment, or sensational news from police blotters, and provide little check on the government. The media continues to remain under strict government control although journalists are able occasionally to report on corruption by government officials. Direct criticism of the Party, however, is clearly forbidden.
With the political content of state media tightly regulated, dissidents and critics of the government have few avenues of expression. The 1993 Publishing Law does not permit private ownership of media or publishing houses. Instead all publishing operations must belong either to state agencies or to officially sanctioned social or political organizations.31 None of the criticism of the government by dissidents, senior Party leaders, or retired officers is published in the state media. In addition, press coverage of hot spots such as Thái Binh and Dông Nai, sites of peasant demonstrations over the last couple of years, was blacked out for more than four months in 1997; access to those areas has been strictly controlled since then.
Passed by the National Assembly in July 1993, the Publishing Law authorizes pre-publication censorship "in necessary circumstances decided by the Prime Minister"32 and bans the following:
C Material detrimental to the Socialist Republic of Viêtnam or the unity of its entire people;
C Material inciting violence or war or aggression, fomenting hatred among nationalities, and peoples of various nations, propagating reactionary concepts and culture, disseminating degenerate or decadent lifestyle; promoting crime, social vice and superstition; and damaging good Vietnamese morals and customs;
C Material revealing party, state, military, national security, economic and foreign affairs secrets; secrets involving the personal lives of citizens; and other secrets stipulated by law;
C Material distorting history, rejecting revolutionary achievements, discrediting great Vietnamese men and national heroes, or slandering and damaging the prestige of organizations or the dignity of citizens.33
Critics such as Hoàng Minh Chinh have been charged under Article 82 of the Criminal Code with propagating "anti-socialist propaganda."34 When the journal published by Nguyên Hô's Club of Former Resistance Fighters criticized the Party in 1989, especially its treatment of war veterans, the government promptly shut down both the publication and the association. In a stern reminder to journalists not to exceed state-imposed limits, Communist Party member Nguyên Hoàng Linh, who had reported on high-level corruption within the General Department of Customs, was dismissed as editor of Doanh Nghiêp (Enterprise) newspaper in 1997. Immediately after Nguyen's arrest, the Politburo issued a directive on October 23, 1997 ordering the press to adhere to the party line and warning all others not to "reveal state secrets." In 1998, Nguyên was tried and found guilty for "taking advantage of democracy to damage the state" and sentenced to time served of a little more than one year.
Requests by dissidents to publish journals have either been rejected or ignored. In July 1999 the Ministry of Culture and Information rejected a request by Trân Dô to publish a newspaper (Appendix 1 contains a translation of Trân Dô's lengthy, carefully articulated request for a permit, as well as a translation of the government's letter of denial). As of this writing the government had not responded to an application to publish a journal made by Thich Quang Dô in September 1999.
The role of the media, as outlined by the official army daily, Hànôi Quân Dôi Nhân Dân, is to combat "reactionary forces." In a January 1999 article, the paper asserted that:
At the national level, the press needs to be quick and sharp in countering malicious arguments and misinformation about the situation in Viêtnam produced by hostile forces. The press should actively participate in breaking up and criticizing reactionary and counter-revolutionary viewpoints of bad, reactionary, and opportunistic elements both at home and abroad.35
In May 1999 the National Assembly passed a new press law which makes the Ministry of Culture and Information responsible for all media outlets and the Internet.36 The new law, which applies only to Vietnamese press and not foreign media outlets, requires journalists to pay compensation or publish retractions to individuals harmed by their reports. Retractions are required not only for inaccurate stories, but for writings which "violat[e] the honour of any organization or the dignity of any individual."37 The vague language of the law, which fails to define clearly what is and is not prohibited, is likely to lead editors to err on the side of caution. Coupled with the 1998 conviction of editor Nguyen Hoang Linh, described above, this measure likely will increase further the already significant degree of press self-censorship, leading the media to back away from reporting on corruption or other scandals involving officials.
Surprisingly, aspects of the new law even drew criticism initially from certain Vietnamese state media. Thus, while endorsing the notion that some issues should be considered off limits for press coverage, at least one newspaper said people questioned why reporters could be sanctioned for reporting that was factual and accurate. Phan Quang, president of the Viêtnam Journalists' Association, an official body, was quoted in Tuôi Tre (Youth) newspaper as telling legislators: "Journalists cannot commit crimes when their reporting is correct...They only bear responsibility for reporting information which is not permissible to report, and in this case, they are only responsible for not abiding by their superiors." Tuôi Tre also quoted legislator Phan Thi Tiên as questioning the provision: "Will media organizations have to pay compensation for losses for their stories on a company producing bad-quality goods because of a boycott by buyers?"38
However in another article, Viêtnam Journalists' Association President Quang appeared to have changed his position, firmly backing the provisions of the new law. In a long article interpreting and lauding the new law in Tap Chi Công San, the theoretical journal of the Party central committee, Phan Quang instructed reporters to publish the conclusions of competent state agencies even if they did not agree with such conclusions:
The revision and amendment [of the Press Law] was also aimed at upholding the social responsibility and obligations of press organs and journalists, determining the authority and obligations of press management agencies, complementing and strengthening the state management of the press, and clearly defining the responsibility of all society for the development of the press in the stage of national industrialization and modernization... The overriding requirement is that after being revisedand amended, the current Press Law still has to institutionalize the viewpoint that the press is placed under the Party leadership and the state management and operates in strict accordance with the law.39
Internet access is tightly controlled for Viêtnam's approximately 30,000 subscribers. While there are four active Internet providers in Vietnam, the government maintains control over Viêtnam's only Internet access provider, Viêtnam Data Communications (VDC). VDC is authorized to monitor subscribers' access to sites and to use "firewalls" to block connections to sites operated by Vietnamese groups abroad that are critical of the government. In April 1999 Hô Chi Minh City police charged that the Internet was being used to leak state secrets as well as to import reactionary materials from "hostile forces" overseas. The police requested that the local people's committee be given full control over the Internet.40 Although Nguyên Dan Quê was able to open an Internet account after his release from prison, it was suspended in May 1999 after he issued a critical statement by e-mail. In January 2000 the Foreign Ministry stated that all information relayed through the Internet in Viêtnam must comply with national security provisions in the Press and Publication laws, which ban information aimed at "sabotaging the Vietnamese government" and harming national security, national unity, national defense, or foreign relations. Also banned from Internet traffic in Viêtnam, according to the Foreign Ministry, is any information damaging to the reputations of organizations or citizens.41
The foreign press and contacts between local journalists and international media representatives also come under governmental scrutiny and controls. A government directive adopted in September 1997 requires Vietnamese journalists to obtain approval from the Ministry of Culture and Information before passing any information to foreign reporters. The Ministry of Culture has also restricted domestic media coverage of rural unrest and the banking system and has instructed news editors to tone down critical economic coverage. Foreign journalists based in Viêtnam have received strong warnings from government officials or had difficulty renewing their visas after focusing too much coverage on the dissidents, for example, by seeking to contact and interview Trân Dô. On December 26, 1999, Pham Thê Hung, a French journalist working for Radio France International (RFI), was expelled from Viêtnam after meeting with members of Hànôi's Catholic community whose names were not on a list of interviewees he had submitted as part of his journalist visa request.42 On April 13, a reporter for L'Express, who was not working on a press visa, was detained and interrogated in Hô Chi Minh City after trying to contact dissidents for interviews.
Vietnamese listeners have access to most international radio stations, but the government jams access to Radio Free Asia.43 Foreign publications are occasionally censored; for example, during the visit of U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen to Viêtnam in March 2000, government censors blacked out sections of a Wall Street Journal editorial about his visit.44 While foreign language newspapers and magazines can be purchased in the major cities, in December1999 an internal Customs Department bulletin announced a crackdown on illegally imported foreign publications because of their "poisonous" content (magazines and newspapers arrive in Viêtnam on international airline flights and then are resold in local bookstores and newsstands). Singled out for confiscation as particularly "noxious" were the South China Morning Post, the Asian Wall Street Journal, Singapore's Straits Times, and Thailand's Nation.45
These restrictions of the media violate Article 69 of the Vietnamese constitution, which states that "citizens are entitled to freedom of speech and freedom of the press," as well as Article 19 of the ICCPR, to which Viêtnam is a state party.
30 "Journalism in Vietnam," unpublished conference paper by Robert Templer, April 29, 1998.31 1993 Publishing Law, Article 9. The 1993 law is discussed in Human Rights Watch, "Human Rights in a Season of Transition: Law and Dissent in the Socialist Republic of Viêtnam," A Human Rights Watch Report, vol. 7, no. 12, August 1995, p.5.
32 1993 Publishing Law, Article 2.
33 1993 Publishing Law, Article 22; BBC, Summary of World Broadcasts, FE/1761 B/6, August 7, 1993. Zachary Abuza, "The Vietnamese Press Under General Secretaries Dô Muoi and Lê Kha Phiêu," draft chapter, unpublished manuscript on file at Human Rights Watch.
34 Human Rights Watch, "Human Rights in a Season of Transition," p.9; Abuza, "The Vietnamese Press," draft chapter.
35 Khanh Toan, "Interview with Senior Lt. Gen. Pham Van Tra, Vietnamese minister of National Defense," Hànôi Quân Dôi Nhân Dân, January 11, 1999, reprinted in FBIS-EAS-99-029.
36 BBC Worldwide Monitoring, translation of amendments to Press Law, passed by the 10th National Assembly's Fifth Session in Hànôi, June 12th, 1999, as published in Vietnamese in Nhân Dân, July 6, 1999; VNA, "National Assembly Passes Amended Press Law," May 19, 1999; Reuters, "Viêtnam tightens state controls over local media," May 20, 1999; Associated Press, "Stricter Laws for Vietnamese Media," May 21, 1999.
37 BBC Worldwide Monitoring, translation of amendments to Press Law, article 9.
38 Associated Press, "Stricter Laws for Vietnamese Media," May 21, 1999.
39 Phan Quang, "Another Step Forward in Perfecting the Legal Corridor of the Press," Hànôi Tap Chi Công San, No. 12, June 1999, reprinted in FBIS-EAS-1999-0730.
40 Associated Press, "Internet must be controlled, advise police," April 8, 1999.
41 Viêtnam News Agency, "Internet's Viêt Nam Input, Output Must Comply with Local Law, Stresses Spokesperson," January 20, 2000.
42 Agence France Presse, "Vietnam says journalist was working `beyond his profession'", January 6, 2000. Also see Reporters Sans Frontiers Press Freedom Alert, "Vietnam: RFI journalist told to leave the country," December 28, 1999.
43 1999 Viêtnam Country Report on Human Rights Practices, Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Department of State, February 25, 2000.
44 The editorial stated that "Hànôi is currently engaged in a Stalinesque clamp down" on corruption and wrote that the Vietnamese Communist Party is "still at war with itself over whether to further open the Vietnamese economy." Government censors blacked out the words "Stalinesque" and "still at war with itself." Robert Burns, "The Past is Revisited in Viêtnam," Associated Press, March 15, 2000.
45 Huw Watkin, "Customs clamp on foreign publications," South China Morning Post, December 10, 1999.
http://www.hrw.org/hrw/reports/2000/vietnam/Viet004-03.htm