Communist Party directives set the tone for Vietnam's media, as political
overseers micromanaged news coverage and maintained strict ideological controls
on the press, all of which is state-owned.
Early in the year, Communist Party chief Lt. Gen. Le Kha Phieu told a gathering
of journalists in Ho Chi Minh City to follow party directives in news coverage.
Local branches of the party's Commission on Culture and Ideology meet weekly
in every major city to issue instructions on coverage to editors, who pass
the word along to their reporters. The party pays particularly close attention
to limiting coverage of stories of official corruption that might implicate
ranking officials.
"In the last year, things have tightened up. We feel less free now," said
a Vietnamese reporter, citing the case of Tamexco, an import-export company
that became embroiled in a $40 million corruption scandal. Three top executives
of the firm were executed by a firing squad in January, but the story stopped
there and the Vietnamese press was told not to pursue the investigation beyond
the executives, despite indications that the scandal may have reached deep
into the political establishment.
In October, another corruption-related story led to the conviction of Nguyen
Hoang Linh, the former editor in chief of the weekly newspaper Doanh
Nghiep (Enterprise), on charges of "abusing democracy and damaging state
interests." Linh was fired, arrested, and jailed in October 1997 after his
newspaper published an unusually detailed series of articles that accused
the customs department of corrupt practices in the purchase of second-hand
patrol boats.
One happy moment occurred with the September release from prison
of Doan Viet
Hoat, who was imprisoned in November 1990 for his work as publisher
of Dien Dan Tu Do (Freedom Forum), an underground pro-democracy
magazine. Hoat, a 1993 recipient of CPJ's International Press Freedom
Award, was exiled to the United States upon his release. Hoat had
spent 19 of the past 22 years in jail for crimes related to free
expression.
Perhaps in reaction to international condemnation of its dismal human rights
record, Vietnamese sources report that the Communist Party is increasingly
using orders of "administrative detention," a form of house arrest and police
surveillance, against journalists and others. The orders are not subject
to court review and receive little publicity.
Controls ban local reporters from "cooperating" or sharing information with
foreign correspondents. Foreign news agencies are also required go through
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for any local hiring. While Vietnam began
allowing direct Internet access to the country in 1997, in December, party
officials announced their intention to establish a committee in Ho Chi Minh
City to monitor Internet use. It will be charged with "correcting mistakes
and bias," according to a report in the influential daily
newspaper Liberated Saigon. The report also said that the Commission
on Culture and Ideology will draw up plans to stop "negative" information
on the Internet, an apparent reference to dissident websites produced outside
Vietnam. |
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