2009

Dear Mr. President: It has been nearly three years since Vietnam was accepted into the World Trade Organization and your government announced its intention to play a more prominent role in international organizations and multilateral forums. Your participation in this week’s United Nations General Assembly and your country’s scheduled assumption next year of the chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are testament to Vietnam’s more engaged approach to international relations.

New York, September 8, 2009—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Vietnamese authorities to release immediately and unconditionally Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, a blogger who writes under the pen name Me Nam, or Mother Mushroom.

New York, September 3, 2009–The Committee to Protect Journalists strongly condemns the recent harassment and arrests of online journalists and political bloggers in Vietnam. The mounting crackdown comes as Web-based journalists and bloggers’ independent reporting challenges the tightly censored state-run media’s traditional monopoly on local news and opinion.    

A major leap forward for freedom of expression in Vietnam has been the rise of blogs. But this development has led to growing conflicts between bloggers, government authorities, and, potentially, multinational Internet service companies.  

CPJ names the worst online oppressors. Booming online cultures in many Asian and Middle Eastern nations have led to aggressive government repression. Burma leads the dishonor roll.

In our special report, “10 Worst Countries to be a Blogger,” CPJ names the world’s leading online oppressors. Here, Deputy Director Robert Mahoney explains why CPJ undertook this report and how it arrived at its conclusions. Listen to the mp3 on the player above, or right click here to download. (5:34)   Read “10 Worst…

China’s media-control model s being embraced in Southeast Asian nations as diverse as communist-led Vietnam, military-run Burma, ostensibly democratic Thailand, and predominantly Muslim Malaysia. By Bob Dietz and Shawn W. Crispin

The government cracked down on journalists, bloggers, and pro-democracy activists, sending some to jail and harassing many others. The campaign of repression reversed a brief period of liberalization that accompanied the country’s 2007 accession to the World Trade Organization.

Dear President Triet: The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned by new online content restrictions that appear to be part of a stepped-up official campaign to suppress and intimidate reporters, editors, and commentators.