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

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Vietnam justifies clampdown on dissidents

HANOI - Faced with mounting international pressure over its human rights record, Vietnam said on Thursday that every country had the right to deal in its own way with dissenters considered a threat to national stability.
In a signed commentary, Nhan Dan (People), the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party, said personal freedoms must not be chaotic and lead to social disorder.

``Each country has its own way to deal with its own problems in order to maintain stability,'' the paper said.
``The freedom of each person cannot be a (chaotic) movement which leads to social disorder... Otherwise society will be unstable and it will cause harm to the interests of the majority.''

The commentary came soon after the arrest of leading dissident Nguyen Thanh Giang. Communist Party sources said the 62-year-old geophysicist had been detained on March 4 in possession of documents considered anti-communist.
The arrest prompted a storm of protest from human rights groups around the world. The United States also issued a plea for Giang's immediate and unconditional release.
Nhan Dan did not name Giang or any other dissident figures in Vietnam that sources have indicated are under heightened surveillance.

The paper said it was irrefutable that Vietnam had a ``healthy democratic atmosphere.''
``However, there are some people, because of their personal discontent, who want to oppose the common tendency and the aspiration of the whole nation.
``They have erased themselves, they have become a stranger to their own nation and their Fatherland. Their out of tune voice full of sense of individualism gains no agreement from anyone,'' it said.

Vietnam's state-controlled media has made no direct mention of Giang's arrest, but repeated requests from foreign media led Hanoi to break its silence and the detention was confirmed on Monday.
But no possible charges against Giang have been specified, and his whereabouts remain unknown.

Analysts have said the Communist Party, in a bid to stamp out rising dissent within its ranks, has been tightening controls and that Giang's arrest was a clear threat to those who called for political reform or questioned its authority.

Nhan Dan also took a dig at the United States and, citing bad treatment and sex abuse of female prisoners, said Washington suffered its own human rights problems.
``America usually calls itself a land of freedom but it is ignoring urgent human rights problems in its own country,'' the paper said.

``No one has the right to teach others on democracy and human rights when their own country is facing plenty of injustice. To deliberately do that would just expose their real face as a hypocrite with a ridiculous sense of self-superiority.''

Reuters - March 17, 1999.