5 Nov 2013 | News and features, Religion and Culture, Vietnam
In late October blogger Dinh Nhat Uy became the first activist sentenced in Vietnam for his Facebook posts, or, more specifically “abusing democratic freedoms” via Facebook (the much-used Article 258 of the legal code). Uy received a 15 month suspended sentence and in that regard he is luckier than the legion of bloggers, writers and activists who have been sent to prison or rehabilitation centres by the government in recent years.
But it is not just bloggers and activists who fall under the government’s watchful eye. Cultural activities from web comics to concerts are also monitored, for sex as much as sedition.
On October 4 General Vo Nguyen Giap passed away at age 102. Two weeks later during the weekend of the war hero’s funeral, most television channels shut down as a mark of respect. The odd BBC report is blocked, sex – but not violence – is cut from many overseas films shown domestically and subtitles often substitute perceived offensive language with more innocuous words. That television, along with nightlife and karaoke, was essentially cancelled shows just how much the old general was revered, and how the government still controls much of the means of communication in Vietnam. Those TV stations which did keep broadcasting showed old revolutionary films.
Bloggers are regularly jailed for pointing out state failings. Journalists face myriad restrictions from the state-owned press. Protesters and those handing out leaflets or organising strikes are also jailed. Facebook, now accessible, was quietly blocked for years and there are still sites one needs a workaround to access. Transparency International, Reporters Without Borders, Human Rights Watch, even Barack Obama, all decry Vietnam’s lack of freedom of speech.
But did you know, you can’t write about blow jobs in women’s magazines? Art, music, pop stars, books, comics, web comics, blogs, foreign news, lifestyle magazines, television subtitles, newspaper articles, research, the findings of market research, unflattering film footage, photographs, song lyrics, religious events, religious books, tour guides’ scripts: all are censored and watched closely by authorities.
Sometimes it’s nothing more than the relevant ministry fining a singer a piddling amount for revealing outfits during a performance as it is “not in keeping with Vietnamese fine traditions”. This is duly reported by papers and websites on slow news days and invariably gives the singer in question more publicity.
This process is piecemeal, contradictory and opaque. Are many rules unclear and often not enforced to keep people on their toes? Or is it simply the uncoordinated and sometimes inept efforts Vietnamese bureaucrats are known for country-wide? It is hard to say.
Once, artists had to submit sketches of their proposed paintings not only before they were given paint. These days things are less draconian but more uncertain. Galleries still need approval before exhibitions are allowed to go ahead; sometimes galleries simply won’t have an official exhibition party. As one art insider said, “there is no one rule.”
September 2009’s Decision 97 doesn’t limit expression but research, to 317 pre-approved topics. One of its most immediate effects was to force the disbanding of the well-respected Institute for Development Studies, which did so of its own volition in protest. Its 16-person membership was made up of Party members and well-known intellectuals, not rabble rousers.
All books in Vietnamese must be, in theory and usually in practice, subject to vetting. Even the Quran when translated into Vietnamese and published locally had to be examined first, according to several ethnic Cham, who are adherents of Islam. There has even been the odd raid on foreign book stores, such as in 2012, to confiscate Lonely Planet Vietnam guidebooks which had maps of the South China Sea which, given the ongoing flare ups with China over disputed island territories, is very firmly referred to as the East Sea in Vietnam.
Randy Slocum runs a bookshop in a tourist town in central Vietnam. He recalled trying to import books when he first opened seven years ago. “When I imported my 3,000 books, they confiscated 450 titles for being ‘depraved and reactionary’. Mostly Harlequin romance novels if you can believe it. But they are also interested in religion, anything about the American War, things about revolution. But they refuse to give you a list of what is banned and they refuse to give reasons why certain books are taken.” It is worth noting that Slocum was at the mercy of the provincial authority, not a draconian arm of Hanoi’s Ministry of Tourism, Sport and Culture, which is largely responsible for much cultural oversight.
The only time cultural censorship reached much of an international audience was when Bob Dylan played Ho Chi Minh City in 2011. He, as he has so often, neglected to play ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’. Both Human Rights Watch and American columnist Maureen Dowd pilloried him for giving in to censorship from communist authorities. However sources close to the show’s organisers said 100 songs, including Blowin’ in the Wind, had been approved. In any case, Dylan’s allegory and circumspection might have made his meanings hard to catch for censors whose first language is not English.
One organiser said, “You have to understand, what the authorities are looking for is actually just profanity and overtly sexual lyrics. It is a moral thing rather than a political one.”
Whilst serious news journalists can face arrest for reporting on corruption, even lifestyle or expat magazines have to tread carefully.
The first issue of Cosmopolitan, which began its Vietnamese-language issue with a local publishing company a few years ago, had a handy guide of the effects of alcohol on one’s orgasm, illustrated by graphics of the ratio of wine glasses to fireworks (two or three drinks is the perfect amount; they start to sputter to nothing after that). The headline mentioned “love” (in those knowing quote marks), not sex.
More generally in this area of publishing words like “him”, “triangle” or, in English, “Mr Happy” (in an article on blow job technique) are employed. Even when the correct, medical terms are employed for the varied body parts censors still apparently refuse, saying it’s “too sensitive”.
“We try to be different many times but the government won’t let us. You cannot write this, it not go with traditional (sic),” an unnamed editor explained. She said the internet was different, plenty of people wrote about sex.
These magazines, by and large, appeal to the educated middle classes. These are the same people, it has long been supposed by optimistic liberals worldwide, who will be behind either a revolution or a gradual ease in political restrictions in any repressive regime. A rising and educated middle class is also a hope of the government as Vietnam tries to move into a middle income country status. Yet they’re not allowed to see a tattoo or a wine bottle in a magazine. The exception is SOME men’s magazines with barely dressed models, which are not uncommon.
Even magazines in English are wary. Vietnamese censors may miss the nuance in a bar review noting the number of friendly young women eager for your company, but a feature on issues sex workers face is problematic enough for editors to avoid.
Content which “abuses democratic freedoms” (Article 258) is never clearly defined but in practice can be anything that criticises the government. Content which “sabotages national fine custom and tradition” or is “not in keeping with Vietnamese tradition” can be anything from a pop star’s stupid hairstyle to art that is covertly critical of the government or ruling elites, but given more leeway here people often actually end up more confused and sometimes even more conservative as a result.
This article was originally posted on 5 Nov 2013 at indexoncensorship.org
21 Aug 2013 | Digital Freedom, News and features, Vietnam
(Photo: Shutterstock)
It has been around a year since Vietnam did something to maintain the title – Enemy of the Internet – that it shares with eight others that include Uzbekistan, Iran and China. Whilst the communist nation has locked up more bloggers so far this year than throughout all of 2012 it is now revisiting last year’s widely derided, and unrealistic, internet draft decree.
The reworked Decree 72, due to come into force September 1, has caused friction as it essentially prohibits people from posting links to news stories, or sections of news articles, on social media sites such as Facebook or the equally popular, locally produced Zing Me.
Pro-democracy websites or those covering religion, politics or human rights have long been blocked. In 2010, Facebook was blocked. A leaked draft regulation requiring ISPs to block the social networking site circulated at the time. The draft was purported to have come from the government, but its veracity was not confirmed. However, access to Facebook quickly became difficult.
A lack of clear mandate from the government and a low-level block meant that people simply fiddled with the DNS settings and claimed the block was down to technical error, not political will. No one took it seriously and the social media site advertised for local staff even when the block was fully in place.
Professor Carl Thayer at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra says that 2009 saw organisation of disparate groups – Catholics, anti-China factions, environmentalists and democracy activists – using Facebook as a rallying area for their shared opposition to Chinese-run bauxite mines in the Central Highlands, an ecologically and politically sensitive area.
However 72 also has something in common with an earlier blog regulation requiring citizens to stick to the personal, and not political themes. As the internet took off in the early- and mid-2000s Yahoo! chat and its blog platform Yahoo! 360 became hugely popular. By 2008 bloggers numbered in the millions. Most writers followed the government’s instructions, though there were scandals that invloved sex bloggers. The Yahoo! blogs also became useful as an alternate news and information source given the state control of media and blocks on sites related to politics, human rights or religion.
At the end of 2008 new blogging regulations limited writings to personal topics. As with Decree 72 posting links to aleady-banned sites was prohibited. The regulation was aimed only at blogs hosted within Vietnam.
“We have issued the circular aiming to create a legal framework to guide bloggers on what can they do and what they can’t do,” said Do Quy Doan, Deputy Minister of Information and Communication, told dpa at the time. The government in fact approached Yahoo! and Google for assistance.
Despite the furore at the time, not much ever came of the regulation, especially since it was designed more as a “guiding document” according to Doan and thus had limited legal use.
In 2010 part of another regulation was aimed at internet service providers and internet cafes. One point required all public computers — those in net cafes popular with teen gamers or hotel foyers — to install Green Dam, a software programme that monitors internet usage.
Unfriendly though it might have been to the idea of internet freedom, it was an ineffective piecemeal approach that quickly fell by the wayside. Those who own internet cafes, which can be found even in one horse towns and are used mostly by boy gamers, have long required background and family checks in order to open.
However Decree 72 goes further, requiring social media users to abstain from posting any news links, even to articles published by state media.
The government has made the point that this new decree is not about restricting freedom of speech but rather aimed at protecting intellectual property. Whilst news sites and blogs repost many news articles without attribution and plagiarism can be a problem in Vietnam it is not Facebook users who are the prime suspects or problem. Website Bao Moi is one of the big aggregators of news in Vietnam and it is not a social media platform.
Those flouting the new law could be more liable for fines than criminal prosecution. Bloggers are more often charged under Article 88 of the penal code, which relates to “conducting propaganda against the state” and can carry a three to 12 year sentence. Prosecuting those who share links or repost from news sites would strain the court and prison systems and fines are easier to issue, argue some.
Vietnam, which often seems to follow China’s security policy, is second only to the nation in the number of dissidents it has detained — 40 in 2013 to date, according to Human Rights Watch.
Vietnam’s government may be an Reporters Without Borders ‘Enemy of the Internet’ but the populace has embraced it, with over a third of the 90-plus million population online. Without government supporting the infrastructure for such growth it could never have happened. Engagement in the ‘knowledge era’ has always been seen as key and broadband was installed up and down the narrow country years ago.
With greater engagement in the world have come issues the government hasn’t been fully equipped to deal with and the internet is the now the main forum for criticism. Whilst the number of genuinely committed political bloggers may be small, the potential not just for critics to organise online but for citizens to share politically compromising material — such as footage of 3000 security police beating and trying to evict farmers from their village to make way for a multi-million dollar development — is huge.
Decree 72 will be largely unenforceable, outside of making the odd example, but it is more realistic than a draft decree on the internet tabled last year that would have required large companies like Google, Yahoo and Facebook to actually host servers within the country and possibly hand user information over to authorities, if asked. ISPs also would have been responsible for content posted on their sites and users would have been required to sign up for accounts with their real names.
The tabled regulation was seen by the foreign business community as a block to further economic growth and global integration. Even decree 72, which is a watered down iteration is expected to “stifle innovation”, according to the Asia Internet Coalition. What may stifle innovation more however is a full and official block of Google and Facebook. According to persistent rumours this will pave the way for local sites or the Russian-owned Coc Coc, which have servers within Vietnam and are more likely to be amenable to government strictures.
As David Brown, who writes regularly on Vietnam’s affairs, pointed out recently in the Asian Sentinel, Vietnam has plenty of ways to deter or stop the more determined political bloggers, such as imprisoning them for tax evasion as in the case of Dieu Cay. However there is the possibility that this may curtail the spread of information by ordinary citizen bloggers with no strong political commitment.
Professor Carl Thayer at the Australian Defense Force Academy in Canberra has said,
“The Decree will have a chilling effect on ordinary bloggers. It is unlikely to prevent more determined internet activists from continuing to post blogs.”
Most recently the government has been discussing policy regarding free chat apps like Viber or Whatsapp. Cell phones have long had huge market penetration and smart phones have been hugely popular in recent years also. Though the word ‘ban’ has been used in state media reports it is apparently linked to revenue losses for local teclos. There is little further information though how, why and when have not been made clear.
This article was originally published on 21 Aug 2013 at indexoncensorship.org.
23 May 2013 | Asia and Pacific
Eight Vietnamese human rights activists are appealing their convictions today.
Index on Censorship has joined a coalition of organisations to pressure the Vietnamese government to end its persecution of the activists. The eight activists, along with six others, were charged under Article 79 of Vietnam’s penal code for “carrying out activities aimed at overthrowing the people’s administration”.
According to Frontline Defenders Ho Duc Hoa was arrested on 30 July 2011 and faces thirteen years in prison followed by five years of house arrest. Thai Van Dung was arrested on 19 August 2011 and faces five years in prison followed by three years house arrest. Paulus Le Son was arrested on 2 August 2011 and faces thirteen years in prison with five years house arrest. Nguyen Xuan Anh is a social activist who faces five years in prison with three years house arrest. Tran Minh Nhat is a journalist with the Vietnam Redemptorist News; he was arrested on 27 August 2011, and was convicted to four years imprisonment with three years house arrest. Ho Van Oanh was arrested on 16 August 2011 and sentenced to three years imprisonment. Nguyen Van Duyet was arrested on 7 August 2011 and was sentenced to six years in prison with four years house arrest. Nguyen Dinh Cuong was sentenced to four years imprisonment.
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15 Nov 2012 | Asia and Pacific
Vietnam is a country that bans authors because of what they write. I know this because it has just happened to me. Two months ago the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam invited me to attend its annual East Sea conference. Today, standing at the airport check-in counter at Heathrow Airport, I finally abandoned my efforts to get there. It’s a huge disappointment — the conference looks excellent and it would have been a chance to properly understand the Vietnamese position on the East Sea disputes. Now the book that I am writing about those disputes will have to go ahead without a Vietnamese perspective. All because of the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security.
It’s taken two months of emails and phone calls to get to this point. For the past week the Diplomatic Academy has actively been trying to find a solution, and in the past few days the British Embassy in Hanoi has also been trying to help. Today came the confirmation — my visa has been refused by the Ministry of Public Security (MPS). The Embassy told me as I was waiting by the check-in desk.
The only reason the MPS can have for banning me is that it doesn’t like the book I published two years ago, Vietnam: Rising Dragon. It can be the only reason — I have no contact with dissident organisations, I have never plotted to overthrow the Party or the state and I have never committed an offence against Vietnam’s immigration laws. Of course, when I was the BBC reporter in Hanoi six years ago, I regularly broke the Press Law — but then every foreign journalist in Vietnam breaks that almost every single day. It’s impossible to be a foreign journalist in Vietnam without contravening the Law’s draconian restrictions.
The Press Law requires all foreign journalists to give the authorities five days notice of every journalistic activity they undertake — every interview, every phone call, every request for information. Of course it is impossible to do this and meet deadlines, so all foreign journalists just break the law and the authorities ignore it — until the foreign journalist writes something that the Ministry of Public Security doesn’t like. It’s one reason why Vietnam sits at the bottom of international lists on media freedom. But they don’t get banned.
So why am I a threat to Public Security? Does the MPS think my book could really destroy the leading role of the Communist Party of Vietnam? It’s a fair, honest and balanced portrayal of modern Vietnam. That means it contains both praise and criticism — honest accounts of how the political system works, how the Party maintains its hold on power and how it relates to the outside world. Little of it is new to most Vietnamese people: they know most of these things very well. I think my offence was to say these things in public – and in English — where foreign governments and aid donors can read them. Vietnam: rising dragon has been well received. At least one American university recommends it to students studying Southeast Asia. No-one has told me about any mistakes or inaccuracies, and no-one has called it biased or unfair.
Perhaps this is the reason why it has not been granted a publication licence in Vietnam. Perhaps this is the reason why I am now banned from the country too. It seems that — for the MPS — it’s an offence to write the honest truth about modern Vietnam.
Bill Hayton is a former BBC reporter in Hanoi and author of Vietnam: Rising Dragon
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