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

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Vietnam wrestles with internet dilemma

HANOI - Squeezed shoulder to shoulder in a tiny cafe behind Hanoi Polytechnic University, students sit transfixed in front of computer monitors. On weekdays, the line runs out the door as they jockey for screen time.

"In the last year, Internet has become more popular in Vietnam; not only with students but with regular people coming here as well," observes Internet cafe owner Dang Thi Diep. A year ago when Diep opened the cafe, there was barely enough business to pay the rent. Now, her 22 new computers are busy all day long. Diep is hoping to expand. This is what Vietnam's leaders envision when they speak of the Internet's potential.

Plans are in motion to quadruple the current number of Internet users to four million by 2005 and the country's fledgling information technology sector will get injections of $100 million over the next two years, an initial investment aimed at harnessing the Internet's economic potential. Yet even as it encourages Internet industry growth with tax breaks and other IT-friendly policies, Vietnam has tightened control over networked information. Web sites with pornography, violence, and in particular, criticism of Vietnam's communist, one-party system are all deemed "poisonous and harmful." The government blocks access to many. The parallel spread of Internet usage and the increased censorship speaks to Vietnam's ambivalence about fully opening the "information superhighway" to its citizens.

"We encourage people to use the Internet because it contributes to rapid social development and speeds up integration with the world," said Phan An Sa, deputy inspector for the Ministry of Culture and Information. But he is quick to add the bottom line: "It doesn't mean they can do anything at any time."

Last year saw the emergence of the country's first "cyber-dissidents" - and Hanoi's harsh reaction. Lawyer Le Chi Quang, charged with "propaganda against the state," was sentenced to four years in prison for posting Internet essays criticizing Vietnam's concessions to China in a land deal. Military veteran Nguyen Khac Toan got 12 years in prison after being convicted of espionage for e- mailing information to "reactionaries" abroad. Two other cases are pending this year - a doctor who translated a U.S. State Department article titled "What is Democracy?" and a former reporter at a communist journal who also criticized the Vietnam-China border agreement and advocated democracy.

The Culture and Information Ministry is proposing a slew of new Internet regulations, such as requiring Vietnam-based Web sites to obtain licenses and seek approval each time content is changed. Sa also wants to hold Internet service providers and cybercafe owners responsible for monitoring customers' activities. He likens the role to that of a public health inspector.

"Restaurant owners must guarantee the food is free from harmful substances. Therefore it's the same with Internet cafe owners. They are not allowed to provide young people with poisonous substances," he said. Most of the customers at the country's estimated 5,000 Internet cafes are students between the ages of 14 and 24, according to the ministry's preliminary surveys last year. The vast majority used the Internet for chatting, games and e-mail. Only 10 percent surfed the Web, and only a fraction of them accessed sites with anti-government or pornographic content.

Vietnam has long been in the business of controlling information - all media is state-owned - but the flurry of Web-related regulations signals Hanoi's growing wariness of a medium it only introduced in 1997. An estimated 2,000 Web sites - including politically sensitive ones - are currently blocked by an extensive government "firewall."

Sa is the first to admit the filter doesn't catch everything: "Once you accept the Internet, you have to accept the good things and undesirable things." But that hasn't stopped Vietnam from launching a vigorous crackdown on dissent. Worldwide, the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders tallied 42 cyber-dissidents imprisoned last year. Vietnam's four cases made up a disproportionately high 10 percent of those.

The watchdog group expressed concerns that Vietnam is mimicking China's repressive Internet policies. Yet while international "hacktivists" use technology to battle Chinese government censorship efforts, Vietnam as a relative Internet newcomer doesn't get as much attention. And that makes it easier for the Hanoi government to control online traffic, said Mike Jendrzejczyk of Human Rights Watch. Quang, one of the cyber-dissidents, was reportedly turned in by his state-owned Internet service provider, which tipped off security agents that he had been communicating with "reactionaries" abroad.

Jendrzejczyk thinks Hanoi is sending the international community very mixed messages. Hanoi's leaders are simply unwilling to grant the freedom required to reap the Internet's economic benefits, he says. Vietnam apparently sees no contradictions in its policies - and Internet connection prices have been dropping as data speeds improve. Tran Kim Doan, head of the Vietnam Software Association doesn't believe the new rules will unduly stifle Internet access.

"To some extent, the information flow cannot be controlled," Doan said. "It's still very free. That's unlikely to change for the worse."

The Associated Press - February 02, 2003.