Vietnam rebuts charges of press censorship
Vietnam angrily rebutted charges from international press watchdogs that
it
has stepped up media censorship in reaction to a high-profile gangster
scandal that has rocked the ruling Communist Party.
The authorities Monday dismissed as "slanderous" allegations from the
New
York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and the Paris-based
Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) that it was hindering press freedom.
"With their fabrications which go against the facts in Vietnam, RSF and
CPJ
have not only damaged their prestige but also slipped into the rut of
other
singers in the chorus against Vietnam," the Quan Doi Nhan Dan (The
People's
Army Daily) said in a hard-hitting editorial.
Last week the CPJ sent an open letter to President Tran Duc Luong
expressing
its alarm over recent efforts to curtail freedom of expression in
Vietnam.
Among its concerns over tighter controls of Internet access and
harassment
of intellectuals, it pointed in particular to the government's ban on
the
reporting of a widening graft scandal implicating underworld leader Nam
Cam.
More than 80 officials have been arrested for their links with the
55-year-old, who was arrested late last year in the southern commercial
hub
of Ho Chi Minh City.
In June, RSF called for the release of three dissidents for publishing
articles on the Internet criticising the Vietnamese authorities over a
controversial border settlement with China.
"The same timetable and similar allegations of RSF and CPJ appear to be
a
juggling game between international institutions about Vietnam's press
freedom," the military mouthpiece said.
"There is nothing new on their slanderous allegations which are
repeating
again and again the themes that others like Human Rights Watch and
Amnesty
International have recently thrown at Vietnam."
The editorial accused the international rights organizations of trying
"by
all means and in different ways to draw a false and dark picture about
democracy and human rights in Vietnam."
Agence France Presse - July 8, 2002.
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