By Defend the Defenders, November 02, 2016
Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontières- RSF) has listed General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong of the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) as one of numerous predators of press freedom.
Trong, who has been in the current position since 2011, was among 35 presidents, politicians, religious leaders, militias and criminal organizations that censor, imprison, torture or murder journalists according to the Paris-based RSF’s grim portrait gallery published on November 2 on the occasion of International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists.
According to RSF, as the party’s chief, Mr. Trong, 72, has deployed Soviet-style totalitarianism to suppress local bloggers and cyber-citizens, the only source of independent news and information in the Southeast Asian communist nation.
RSF said Trong knows about journalism because he was a journalist himself for much of his adult life. He was the editor of Tap Chi Cong San, a theoretical review that helps to shape the ruling CPV’s ideology. In other words, he practiced journalism that complied with Soviet-style totalitarianism, under which the only legitimate media are those that disseminate state propaganda.
When Nguyen Dac Kien, a journalist of the Family and Society newspaper, expressed an opinion in his coverage of a speech by Trong, he was immediately fired for violating the newspaper’s ethics.
In Vietnam, pluralism is completely banned and the Internet is subject to close surveillance. By decree, all journalists are required to reveal their sources and are forbidden to use pseudonyms.
Bloggers and cyber-dissidents are often given long jail sentences. At least 15 citizen journalists and bloggers have been imprisoned for “abusing democratic freedoms,” “carrying out propaganda activities” or “activities aimed at overthrowing the government” under controversial articles 258, 88 and 79 of the country’s Penal Code, respectively.
According to Vietnam’s law, website with “articles and messages that promote Nazism, violence, a multi-party political system, and ideological pluralism” are regarded as criminal.
Other foreign leaders, including Chinese President and communist chief Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korean Chairman Kim Jong Un, Cuban President Raul Castro, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and the Taliban and Islamic State were also on the list.
Vietnam was ranked 175th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2016 World Press Freedom Index. The communist nation is one of the world’s most hostile countries to media freedom, said the Paris-based group.
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November 3, 2016
RSF Lists Vietnamese Communist Leader as Predator of Press Freedom
by Nhan Quyen • [Human Rights]
By Defend the Defenders, November 02, 2016
Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontières- RSF) has listed General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong of the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) as one of numerous predators of press freedom.
Trong, who has been in the current position since 2011, was among 35 presidents, politicians, religious leaders, militias and criminal organizations that censor, imprison, torture or murder journalists according to the Paris-based RSF’s grim portrait gallery published on November 2 on the occasion of International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists.
According to RSF, as the party’s chief, Mr. Trong, 72, has deployed Soviet-style totalitarianism to suppress local bloggers and cyber-citizens, the only source of independent news and information in the Southeast Asian communist nation.
RSF said Trong knows about journalism because he was a journalist himself for much of his adult life. He was the editor of Tap Chi Cong San, a theoretical review that helps to shape the ruling CPV’s ideology. In other words, he practiced journalism that complied with Soviet-style totalitarianism, under which the only legitimate media are those that disseminate state propaganda.
When Nguyen Dac Kien, a journalist of the Family and Society newspaper, expressed an opinion in his coverage of a speech by Trong, he was immediately fired for violating the newspaper’s ethics.
In Vietnam, pluralism is completely banned and the Internet is subject to close surveillance. By decree, all journalists are required to reveal their sources and are forbidden to use pseudonyms.
Bloggers and cyber-dissidents are often given long jail sentences. At least 15 citizen journalists and bloggers have been imprisoned for “abusing democratic freedoms,” “carrying out propaganda activities” or “activities aimed at overthrowing the government” under controversial articles 258, 88 and 79 of the country’s Penal Code, respectively.
According to Vietnam’s law, website with “articles and messages that promote Nazism, violence, a multi-party political system, and ideological pluralism” are regarded as criminal.
Other foreign leaders, including Chinese President and communist chief Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korean Chairman Kim Jong Un, Cuban President Raul Castro, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and the Taliban and Islamic State were also on the list.
Vietnam was ranked 175th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2016 World Press Freedom Index. The communist nation is one of the world’s most hostile countries to media freedom, said the Paris-based group.