Today I was banned from Vietnam

15 Nov 12 | 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

Questions remain as governor names Regina Martinez “killer”

07 Nov 12 | Americas, Mexico

On 30 October, the state government of Veracruz announced it had solved the murder of Proceso magazine reporter Regina Martinez, who was killed in April this year. In her 10 years as a Proseco journalist, Martinez had frequently reported on drug trafficking in the region.

A vigil calling for justice for Regina Martinez, May 2012 – Demotix

Veracruz officials named Jorge Antonio Hernadez Silva as one of two alleged murderers. Silva is reported to have confessed to the murder and named a second suspect, Jose Adrian Hernandez, who is still at large.

According to state Governor Javier Duarte, the killer told investigators that the motive for the murder was robbery . He apparently said that Martinez let both suspected killers into her home at around 11pm; an argument erupted and she was strangled and killed.

But the government version of events has been rejected by the Martinez’s former employers at Proceso magazine, and  Mexico’s federal Attorney General’s office has also questioned the state investigation.

The controversy over Martinez’s killing is just the latest event to pit Veracruz’s press and Javier Duarte’s government against each other. Proceso claims that in the 23 months since Duarte took office, he has had a tense relationship with the local press. Nine reporters have been killed during that time, three more have disappeared and 30 have fled the state because of threats against them.

The governor’s press office has aggressively campaigned against “negative” news. Its press officers often call local media to ask that reporters write stories more “positively”. Proceso staffers believe that Duarte, in naming Martinez’s killer, is trying to close a  high-profile case that has become a problem for his office and the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), just weeks before the PRI President Elect Enrique Peña Nieto takes office.

Michael O’Connor of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), has said the state investigation made no sense.  The CPJ report says the state “is fabricating a murder case against the wrong people” and according to O’Connor who has interviewed Martinez’s friends and reviewed the crime scene investigation, the government’s story has some major holes.

First is the claim that Martinez willingly let the men who killed her into her home at 11pm for a late night chat. Friends of the late journalist interviewed by O’Connor said she cherished her privacy and never invited people into her house — even close friends.

Secondly, O’Connor said the crime scene investigation report states that Regina was surprised by her assailants while she was in the bathroom — this doesn’t fit with the defendants version of events.

Writing in Proceso Magazine, Alberto J Olvera, a journalist and researcher at the Universidad Veracruzana, has said: “Authorities will have to convince the Mexican people, and specially the journalism community, that the investigation is seriously backed by scientific evidence.  Their case is weak”.