Vietnam / Asia

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.

Time.com’s “China Blog” has a post today titled “A Dark Time for Reporters in China” that outlines some recent cases of harassment and violence against journalists working in the country and quotes our statistics of journalists imprisoned for their work.

New York, October 15, 2008–Nguyen Viet Chien, a reporter for the Vietnamese daily newspaper Thanh Nien who broke major stories on high-level government corruption in 2006, was sentenced today to two years in prison after being found guilty of “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the state,” according to news reports.

New York, September 19, 2008–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the actions of Vietnamese police who assaulted Associated Press reporter Ben Stocking, after detaining him in Hanoi today. Police detained Stocking, AP’s Hanoi bureau chief, while he was covering a Catholic protest.

New York, September 11, 2008–The Committee to Protect Journalists strongly condemns a Vietnamese court decision on Wednesday to imprison blogger Nguyen Van Hai, better known by his penname Dieu Cay, on charges of tax evasion. The court in Ho Chi Minh City, in southern Vietnam, convicted Hai, 55, in a closed-door trial, sentencing him to…