Vietnam may set up second Internet police force
HANOI - Vietnam may set up an additional police force to monitor "online crimes
and prevent " the storing and circulating of harmful information", a
security official said Tuesday.
Vietnam already has an online security police force, but the ministry of
public security proposal would mean create a second "special mission force
dealing with Internet-related crimes," a public security official told
Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
If approved by Le Hong Anh, Vietnam's Minister for Public Security, the
new task force will target hackers, online illegal gambling, and "storing
and circulating harmful information," said the official, who declined to
be named.
International human rights groups say there are at least four dissidents
who were imprisoned or detained for criticizing Vietnam on the Internet.
In February, Amnesty International launched an appeal for the release of
Le Chi Quang, who was convicted of "gathering information, writing,
distributing and keeping documents with distorted contents about the
political situation in Vietnam".
Quang, 32, was arrested in an Internet cafe in Hanoi in February 2002. He
was then sentenced to four years in prison after a closed-door trial
lasting a half day in November 2002.
The Vietnamese government operates a firewall which blocks access to
dozens of sites critical of the communist regime.
Following new legislation introduced last year, all domestic website
content providers must obtain approval and a license from the Ministry of
Culture and Information.
Internet content providers must not post information that "incites the
people to oppose the government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam or
causes hostility between different ethnic groups", said Bui The Vinh, a
Ministry of Culture and Information official last year.
In Vietnam all forms of media are tightly controlled by the communist
government and critics can be jailed on broadly defined but strict
national security laws.
Deutsche Presse Agentur - November 09, 2003.
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