~ Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

[Year 1997]
[Year 1998]
[Year 1999]
[Year 2000]
[Year 2001]

Internet banned in Vietnamese province

HANOI - Although Internet service is booming elsewhere in Vietnam, it was banned in a central province by local security officials who said it could threaten national security, official media reported Friday. The Phu Yen provincial post office offered public Internet service in the provincial capital in late 1998 and it flourished for six months, the Lao Dong (Labour) trade union newspaper reported.

But provincial security police then demanded that the post office present a plan to ensure that Internet service could not endanger national security, the newspaper quoted Luong Muoi, deputy director of the provincial post office's Information Technology Centre, as saying. Post offices in neighbouring provinces did not face similar demands, he said. Local security police often act on their own volition. The provincial post office chose to close down the service, Muoi said. The newspaper quoted Dinh Thanh Hai, a local police official, as saying it was wrong for the post office to launch its Internet service without seeking permission from relevant agencies, especially without reporting to the provincial police on measures to protect national security.

Some Vietnamese dissidents have used the Internet to spread documents critical of the Communist government. Internet service, which was introduced in Vietnam in 1997, is provided by five government agencies which regulate its content.

The Associated Press - August 17, 2001.