In Vietnam, press freedom is always respected and consistently implemented by the Party and State of Vietnam (Photo: People visit the exhibition booth at the national press conference)_Source: plo.vn
1- On January 16, 2025, CPJ - a non-profit organization based in New York, USA - published the report "Attacks on the Press in 2024", and once again, it was a one-sided, distorted view, distorting the truth, only deliberately focusing on and delving into cases of handling violations of the law to exaggerate wrongdoing. CPJ mentioned 16 people that they labeled as "persecuted journalists", detained in Vietnam, as of December 1, 2024. Obviously, this is a deliberate, blatant accusation, distorting the nature of the matter!
First of all, it must be affirmed that the CPJ's publication of the above report is unacceptable, because the United Nations Charter, the Charter of the Americas, the Declaration of the United Nations General Assembly on non-interference in the internal affairs of nations and the protection of national independence and sovereignty ... all clearly state that interference in the internal affairs of other nations is not allowed.
In fact, not only former journalists, but any citizen among the 100 million Vietnamese people have the right to express their views and opinions, to speak up about issues and fields occurring in their country without being banned, interfered with, or censored. Anyone can post information, images, videos , etc. on social networking sites, typically Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, etc. without asking for permission from the authorities. Some people even own accounts on many social networking sites, and participate on all social networking sites at the same time to serve different purposes. However, it must be based on a number of principles, that is, the law does not accept citizens, foreigners, etc. living and working in the country who take advantage of democratic freedoms and freedom of speech to intentionally commit the crime of "propaganda against the state", "infringing upon the interests of the state", etc. with false information, inciting sabotage.
CPJ mentioned 16 people they consider “persecuted journalists” detained in Vietnam, as of December 1, 2024. Obviously, this is a deliberate, blatant labeling that distorts the nature of the matter! They labeled these individuals as journalists according to the approach of the US Press Law, but did not mention the regulations of the country where these individuals are citizens, that is, the press law of Vietnam.
Those Vietnamese individuals use social media platforms, Facebook, YouTube, Zalo, TikTok, etc. to post articles based on their personal views, which is completely inconsistent with the concept of journalists under Vietnamese law. Thus, CPJ's "cheating" between bloggers and journalists - two completely different terms, and then slandering and making up false stories in its reports on the situation of press freedom in Vietnam is clearly evidence of its ambition to incite and sabotage Vietnam!
It should be clarified that CPJ was founded in 1981, with a seemingly good, benevolent, and fair mission and goal: "to promote freedom of expression worldwide through activities to protect the right to report and freedom of the press based on respect for objective truth". But in reality? During its 44 years of existence, the transformation of the non-profit organization has become increasingly evident, especially in the fact that this organization has been corrupted to serve political purposes, with comments on major issues related to the internal affairs of many countries, especially human rights and freedom of the press, in an unreasonable, distorted, imposed, and unobjective and unfair manner. Not only the report published in early 2025, but also many other CPJ reports have been biased, one-sided, and malicious regarding the situation of press freedom in many countries around the world, including Vietnam. For example, on February 10, 2008, CPJ released the so-called “Report on the Repression of Journalists Around the World in 2008”, which included distorted content that Vietnam had “repressed many journalists, bloggers, blocked all websites or unjustly detained and revoked the press cards of some reporters”... On February 14, 2013, CPJ falsely claimed that Vietnam was in the top 5 countries that imprison journalists the most in the world. According to CPJ, “journalists imprisoned in Vietnam are mainly accused of “subversion of the state” - one of the crimes that Vietnam often uses to suppress voices criticizing the Government”. On December 8, 2014, CPJ concluded that, “The Vietnamese government should stop using legal threats to silence independent bloggers and start protecting the freedom of the press as enshrined in the Vietnamese Constitution”. In early September 2019, CPJ said that Vietnam was in the top 10 countries with the most press censorship (1) ...
2- What is the reality? According to a report published in February 2025 by We Are Social - a global social media analysis company - as of January 2025, there were 76.2 million social media users in Vietnam, accounting for 75.2% of the total population. However, this data may not accurately reflect the number of unique individuals due to the overlap of users on many different platforms. That clearly reflects the reality that, since connecting to the global internet on December 1, 1997, Vietnam has continuously set new records, ensuring freedom of speech and freedom of the press, best meeting the needs of people to search, exchange, and enjoy information anytime, anywhere, in all aspects,... both on mass media and social media. Vietnamese people can access all websites and homepages of press agencies in the world; can express all thoughts, concerns, legitimate and legal desires, ensuring good customs, human values,... on social networks every hour, every day, through writing articles, posting photos, video clips, podcasts...
Why is it that in a country with one of the highest numbers of social media users in the world, where people post and access information freely, considering it an important information channel in all areas of life, from entertainment, learning, etc. to doing various jobs, such as business and social criticism, only a few people deliberately go against the interests of the nation and people? Simply because they know how to comply with and obey the law. Yet CPJ deliberately clings to a small number of violators to fabricate, exaggerate, incite, and sabotage. Obviously, CPJ's choice of information approach is problematic, with a lack of constructive intention, to deliberately distort and falsify the truth, or due to not having full information. Because the people mentioned in the reports of this non-profit organization are all individuals who have violated the law, the information they provide is not related to the press activities or the press agencies they used to be members of.
Notably, not only freedom of the press, the issue of freedom of speech in Vietnam has also been concerned very early, promoted and guaranteed. Just over 1 year after the success of the August Revolution in 1945, on November 9, 1946, the National Assembly of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, now the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, passed the Constitution consisting of 7 chapters and 70 articles, in which the right to freedom of speech is stipulated in Article 10: "Vietnamese citizens have the right to: Freedom of speech, freedom of publication, freedom of organization and assembly, freedom of belief, freedom of residence, and travel within the country and abroad". Since 1956, Decree No. 282-SL, dated December 14, 1956, regulating the right to freedom of speech in the press has been issued... The 1959 Constitution stipulates the right to freedom of speech and press, the 1980 Constitution stipulates the right to freedom of speech and press, the 1992 Constitution stipulates the right to freedom of speech and press. Article 25 of the 2013 Constitution affirms: “Citizens have the right to freedom of speech, freedom of the press, access to information, assembly, association, and demonstration. The exercise of these rights is prescribed by law.”
In recently promulgated laws, such as the Press Law (2016); the Law on Access to Information (2016); the Law on Cyber Security (2018), etc., freedom of speech is always respected and guaranteed. In particular, Article 13 of the Press Law (2016) on “State responsibility for citizens’ freedom of the press and freedom of speech in the press” clearly stipulates: “1. The State creates favorable conditions for citizens to exercise their freedom of the press and freedom of speech in the press and for the press to properly promote its role. 2. The press and journalists operate within the framework of the law and are protected by the State. No one is allowed to abuse the freedom of the press and freedom of speech in the press to infringe upon the interests of the State, the legitimate rights and interests of organizations and citizens. 3. The press is not censored before printing, transmitting and broadcasting”...
An easily seen and easily verified objective fact is that throughout the more than 95 years since the founding of the Communist Party of Vietnam (February 3, 1930 - February 3, 2025), our Party and State have always created favorable conditions for citizens' freedom of the press and freedom of speech to be exercised in accordance with the provisions of law, respected and guaranteed. The Resolution of the 13th National Party Congress sets out the policy of "Building a professional, humane and modern press and media". According to data from the Ministry of Information and Communications (2024), as of December 2024, Vietnam had 884 press agencies, including 812 newspapers, magazines and 72 radio and television stations. According to statistics, the whole country has 41,000 people working in the field of journalism, about 21,000 journalists with press cards. Even when the reorganization and transfer of functions and tasks of press agencies in the overall revolution of streamlining the organizational apparatus of the political system is completed, the number of press agencies and personnel working in the press field has decreased, but the statistics are still very significant, clearly showing the freedom of the press in Vietnam, demonstrating the extremely positive role of the press in the cause of building and defending the Fatherland. This is even more meaningful and clear when all journalists in Vietnam have the right to conduct press activities in the territory of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, conduct press activities abroad according to the provisions of law and are protected by law in their professional activities; objective, multi-dimensional reflection... in all fields, actively contributing to orienting public opinion on hot issues, issues with different opinions, and issues of interest to many people... Of course, in the process of operation, it is inevitable that for personal interests, small groups, journalists have violated the law to the extent of having to be criminally prosecuted... CPJ ignores and deliberately ignores the achievements of Vietnam's revolutionary press in order to misinform that Vietnam "suppresses the press", undermining public trust in the press, in the leadership of the Party and the management of the State.
3- On the world level, Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted and promulgated by the United Nations General Assembly under Resolution 271A (III), December 10, 1948) clearly affirms: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers” (2) . For each country and nation, the inheritance, development, application and compliance with the values of the Declaration have certain differences, because of the different political, economic, social, cultural characteristics, etc. But there is a universal value that these freedoms must be within the framework of the law, as Articles 29 and 30 of the Declaration stipulate (3) . What everyone must admit is that once a violation is committed, one must be held responsible before the law. No country in the world allows hostile, reactionary, and destructive forces to act freely, act rashly, and slander the country, the regime, and its leaders. No country tolerates bad behavior that violates the law, goes against the common interests of the community and the people, hinders and sabotages the country's development, and goes against universal human values of ensuring and protecting human rights and civil rights.
Thus, it is clear that Vietnam's legal documents on press activities and journalists all affirm the right to press activities; recognize citizens' right to freedom of the press, citizens' right to freedom of speech in the press. This is completely consistent with the universal values of human rights and civil rights recognized and guaranteed in international documents. This is obvious, there is nothing to argue about, it is just unfortunate that CPJ intentionally collects one-sided information, from reactionary organizations against Vietnam, from social networking sites that violate the law, oppose the Party, State and people of Vietnam! That is all false information, not objective, violating the principles of journalism. So, let's ask, what is the purpose of CPJ's loud accusations, other than the intention to sabotage, taking advantage of the name and cover to exert political pressure!
Not stopping there, based on the annual reports of CPJ, a non-profit organization called the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), also headquartered in New York (USA), joined in accusing Vietnam of "suppressing freedom of speech, freedom of the press", violating freedom, democracy and human rights. With the same old arguments, the same deliberately destructive perspectives, the exploitation of distorted information, HRF blatantly published extremely misleading reports on the situation of freedom of the press and freedom of speech in Vietnam. At first hearing the phrase "press suppression" mentioned by these non-profit organizations, one shudders at the deceitful distortion and deliberate sabotage.
Therefore, it is necessary to reaffirm that the basic human freedoms, including freedom of speech and freedom of the press, are always respected and consistently implemented by the Party and State of Vietnam. The regulation, protection and guarantee of basic human freedoms in Vietnam based on national law and in accordance with universal values of human rights and civil rights recognized and guaranteed in international documents, in accordance with the practical situation, are the driving force of the country's innovation, have a positive impact, and make great contributions to the country's development, especially after nearly 40 years of implementing the innovation process. In the context that Vietnam is simultaneously carrying out a revolution in streamlining the organizational apparatus, arranging administrative units; institutional reform; breakthroughs in science and technology development, innovation, digital transformation; developing the private economy; proactively and actively integrating internationally in a synchronous, comprehensive, profound and effective manner..., through the dissemination of the Party's guidelines and policies, the State's policies and laws, the Vietnamese press has fully reflected the people's thoughts and aspirations, raised its voice to criticize what is unreasonable, helping the Party and the State make timely adjustments, creating high consensus among the people. Obviously, reasonable and accurate opinions for the country of the press and the people on mass media as well as cyberspace in the context of strong digital transformation today are extremely important, contributing to the voice of consensus, creating clarity in thoughts and actions to contribute to creating a solid foundation and launching pad for the country to enter a new era, an era of rising up, developing richly, civilizedly and prosperously for the nation. That is the positive contribution of the Vietnamese press, as in the 100 years of formation and development of the Revolutionary Press. These are also strong voices that accurately and convincingly refute the distorted and destructive arguments of reactionary and hostile forces./.
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(1) See: Nguyen Tri Thuc: “Press freedom and the malicious view, provocative and destructive intentions of CPJ”, Dai Doan Ket Newspaper, October 1, 2019
(2) Universal Declaration of Human Rights , 1948, Labor - Social Publishing House, Hanoi, 2011, p. 410
(3) See: Nguyen Tri Thuc: “Freedom of speech” or “free speech” to distort and incite against the Party, State and people”, Communist Magazine , No. 930, November 2019
Source: https://tapchicongsan.org.vn/web/guest/nghien-cu/-/2018/1102902/phai-chang-co-mot-%E2%80%9Ctu-do-bao-chi%E2%80%9D-khong-co-gioi-han%3F.aspx
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