Hanoi Web Crackdown Hits Blogs; Foreign Firms Fret
HANOI--Vietnam's leaders are stepping up their campaign against critical blogs, ordering government investigators to arrest the operators of three websites at a time when global Internet companies are growing more worried about doing business in the tightly policed country.</br></br>A government statement issued late Wednesday named three blogs that allegedly posted articles accusing the government of corruption and human-rights abuses, describing the blogs as being part of a "wicked plot of the hostile forces"--a term often used to describe advocates of democratic reforms.</br></br>Two of the three sites vowed to continue. One, Danlambao, or "The People's Journalism Blog," said in a fresh posting Thursday that its anonymous operators are "prepared to be repressed and imprisoned rather than leading the life of a dumb dog that dares not to bark," paving the way for a deepening confrontation between Vietnam's authoritarian leaders and its increasingly vibrant online community as the country's once-booming economy slumps.</br></br>The Web has taken off here faster than in many other up-and-coming nations. Around 34% of Vietnam's 90 million people are online, a larger proportion than in more established neighbors such as Thailand and Indonesia, driven in part by the rapid spread of high-speed cellphone networks and a desire among younger Vietnamese to connect with the rest of the world separately from the nation's state-run media.</br></br>Growing numbers of Vietnamese have launched their own blogs in recent months, where they discuss everything from traditional folk songs and where to buy secondhand iPhones to the corruption that has accompanied a decadelong economic expansion here. One prominent blogger, 60-year-old retired soldier Ng Thuong Thuy, writes forcefully under his own name about injustices in Vietnam's legal systems, especially the explosive issue of land rights which government-controlled media rarely cover.