1997 - 2007 : Ten years of Internet censorship and control

Reporters Without Borders today marked a dismal tenth anniversary of the Internet in Vietnam, which it said has followed the Chinese example by tightening censorship of websites dealing with politics and religion and sentencing bloggers to the same penalties as journalists. The worldwide press freedom organisation hailed growing moves by oversees Vietnamese to put out free and independent news and said it hoped that the situation could improve when Vietnam becomes a member of the World Trade Organisation. But this year Vietnam has seen its worst wave of arrests of cyber-dissidents since 2002 and the government has not kept its word, the organisation said. Since websites hosted in the country have been monitored, the opposition has mainly decamped to foreign-based websites. From 2002, the country has had a cyber-police service which filters all “subversive” content and mounts surveillance of cyber-cafés. Eight cyber-dissidents are currently in prison and the five available service providers - Vietnam Data Communications Company (VDC), Corporation for finance and promoting technology (FPT), Netcam Company, Saigon Post and Telecommunications services corporation (SPT) and Viettel Company are all under the control of the authorities. The country's then sole service provider, Vietnam Data Communications Company (VDC), announced the launch of public Internet access on 19 November 1997 Official control of Internet access was set up on 6 June 1996 under a directive promulgated by the general management of posts and telecommunications. Up to 19 November 1997, the Internet was confined to email and local data bases. Two lawyers and cyber-dissidents Nguyen Van Dai and Le Thi Cong Nhan, will appeal on 27 November 2007 against jail terms of respectively five and four years handed down on 11 May 2007, for “making propaganda against the government”