Today I was banned from Vietnam

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

More on this story:

Vietnam: free expression in free fall

Ask your police commissioner candidates about social media arrests

13 Nov 2012 | Uncategorized

The whole of the UK is riveted by the race to elect police commissioners.

Actually let me rephrase that. The police commissioner elections are to be held this Thursday, to widespread indifference. But these are potentially important positions, so maybe we should be asking questions of the candidates (including John Prescott, pictured).

Here’s one to try for your local candidate: Do you think arresting young people for posting “offensive” content on Facebook and Twitter is an appropriate use of police time and taxpayers money?

In case you don’t know who your local police commissioner candidates are, you can search for them here www.policeelections.com.

Let us know if you get an answer in the comments  below, on our Facebook page, or on twitter @indexcensorship.

UPDATE: We’ve had an answer from Rupert Moss-Eccardt, Lib Dem police commissioner candidate for Cambridgeshire

(Hat tip to Bob Farrell on Facebook for the suggestion)

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Free expression: you’re doing it wrong, Bahrain.

1 Nov 2012 | Middle East and North Africa, Opinion

Bahrain has a funny definition of free speech.

After jailing human rights activists and social media users critical of the government and even going as far as banning protests, the country’s government still insists that it protects its citizens’ right to freedom of expression.

A child protester at a rally in Bahrain, 12 October 2012 – Demotix

In the most recent case, Bahraini officials reportedly sentenced a social media user to six months in jail for insulting the country’s King Hamad on Twitter. He was one of the four Twitter users arrested last month for “defaming public figures on social media” — which, according to the Ministry of Interior, is a no-no:

The acting Director-General said that the freedom of expression was protected under the Bahraini constitution and the law.  However, this freedom did not allow the defamation of others. He stressed the importance of using the social media responsibly and ethically.

So expressing discontent with Bahrain’s government seems to fall outside the bounds of what is responsible and ethical, while the online war Bahrain wages against activists and protesters seems to fall within it.

Earlier this week, Bahrain banned all protests, after “repeated abuses” of free expression. The ban is supposedly being used to diffuse what has become an even more violent and desperate situation. In the past two months, security forces have killed two teenagers. After a roadside bomb took the life of a police officer during clashes in the village of Akar, seven were arrested in connection to the attack.

Rather than merely cracking down on dissent, Bahrain would do better to follow through on its promise to implement the 140 of the 176 recommendations that came from this year Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the UN. Or even follow through on the seemingly long-forgotten recommendations from the Bahrain Independent Commission for Inquiry (BICI) last year.

But Bahrain’s desperation to silence its unrest — rather than address it — is only contributing to the country’s declining situation, and its disregard for reforms only spells out a bleak picture for its human rights situation. While insisting that it protects freedom of expression, Bahrain has actually declared war on it.

Sara Yasin is an editorial assistant at Index on Censorship. She tweets at @missyasin