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.
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