By Ian Timberlake (AFP) – September 4, 2009
HANOI — Three online writers in Vietnam who touched on the sensitive topic of China relations have been arrested in a “mounting crackdown” which drew strong condemnation Friday from a global press watchdog.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called for the immediate release of Pham Doan Trang, a journalist for prominent news website VietnamNet, and Bui Thanh Hieu, who blogs under the name Nguoi Buon Gio (Wind Trader).
Both were arrested late last week allegedly over “national security” issues.
“Vietnam is already one of the world’s worst violators of Internet freedom, and recent actions only underscore that reputation,” CPJ’s Asia programme director, Bob Dietz, said in a statement.
The mother of another blogger confirmed to AFP on Friday that her daughter, Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, 30, was arrested by about 15 officers around midnight Wednesday at their home in the southern coastal city of Nha Trang.
Quynh blogged under the name “Me Nam”.
Her mother, Nguyen Thi Tuyet Lan, said Quynh was accused of abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the state, a crime which can lead to a prison term.
A foreign diplomat declined to give details but said Quynh was arrested for “the same reason” as the other blogger and the journalist. The three cases were all closely connected, said the diplomat, who declined to be named.
All three had posted articles about sovereignty issues in the South China Sea, where Vietnam and China are engaged in a boundary dispute over the Spratley and Paracel archipelagos.
Both Wind Trader and Quynh had also written about a bauxite mining project which is controversial partly because a Chinese company has been granted a major contract.
The diplomat, without elaborating, said Quynh went “a step further” than blogging and that this contributed to her arrest.
Quynh’s mother said that on July 20 she wore a T-shirt calling for the cancellation of the bauxite project and announcing Vietnamese sovereignty over the Paracels and Spratleys.
“Growing commercial and diplomatic ties with China are particularly sensitive in Vietnam, given the two neighbouring countries’ often antagonistic history,” the CPJ said in a statement.
The detained VietnamNet reporter wrote in May that China “possesses the conditions to become a regional hegemonist.”
She had also shared sensitive information with bloggers and other journalists about a Chinese official who called on his Vietnamese counterparts to discipline local newspapers and journalists, the CPJ said, citing the independent Free Journalists’ Network of Vietnam.
Another foreign diplomat said Friday that the arrests are linked to China issues but also to preparations for the Communist Party’s 2011 congress.
“The tension’s getting higher and higher,” said the diplomat, also requesting anonymity. “They want to have everything in order” before the Congress, where top leadership positions are decided.
Last week, Vietnamese newspaper reporter Huy Duc was fired after writing comments in a personal blog highlighting human rights abuses committed by Vietnam’s former communist ally the Soviet Union.
US ambassador Michael Michalak recently expressed concern over Vietnam’s efforts to crack down on the media and to “criminalise free speech.”
Vietnam late last year tightened curbs on bloggers to ban views seen as opposing the state or undermining national security. The country’s traditional media are all linked to the state.
