BANGKOK, Jan 27, 2011 (IPS) – A week after Vietnam\u2019s ruling Communist Party ended its pivotal congress of the country\u2019s political elite, there is little evidence in the state-controlled media of a possible return to the openness that once saw high-profile corruption scandals exposed in print here.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the way it is going to be,\u201d<\/em> a senior Vietnamese journalist told IPS on condition of anonymity, pointing to the staid diet of news filling the pages in the Southeast Asian nation, home to an estimated 700 newspapers and magazines. \u201cThe message from the congress to journalists was very clear.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cNobody will want to upset the ruling party,\u201d<\/em> he added. \u201cThey know the price if they dare.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Such fear emerged at the beginning of the Eleventh National Congress, when Dinh The Huynh, the editor-in-chief of \u2018Nhan Dan\u2019, the Communist Party\u2019s official news outlet, joined other leaders of the party hierarchy to stamp out arguments calling for \u201call forms of pluralism\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n It amplified what the Vietnamese had learnt on the eve of the Congress, which ran from Jan. 12 to 19. At that time Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung issued an executive decree that outlawed fundamental features that are the stock in trade of journalists pursuing investigative stories: unnamed confidential sources.<\/p>\n The 44-page decree, which comes into force Feb. 25, \u201coutlines new monetary penalties for journalists who refuse to divulge their news sources or publish articles under pseudonyms,\u201d<\/em> noted the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York-based global media rights watchdog, soon after. \u201c[The new decree] supersedes any similar decrees issued in the past,\u201d<\/em> CPJ added.<\/p>\n The penalty of 2,000 dollars would be levied against journalists who publish articles that are \u201cnot in the interest of the people\u201d<\/em>, reveal \u201cstate secrets\u201d<\/em>, or expose \u201cnon-authorised information\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cThis new decree aims to increase government control over Vietnam\u2019s already over-regulated and highly suppressed media,\u201d<\/em> says Shawn Crispin, CPJ\u2019s senior Southeast Asia representative. \u201cThe language of the decree is overly broad and represents the government\u2019s latest use of rule by law justifications to limit press freedom.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The emergence of Nguyen Phu Trong – the new general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) – as the most powerful political figure in the country also served as a reminder that journalists in the country are not defenders of the right to free expression. Trong is a former editor of the \u2018Communist Review\u2019, a CPV journal.<\/p>\n Trong was chosen as the party boss on the last day of the secretive congress, which was attended by 1,400 delegates representing the party\u2019s 3.6 million members. He was a compromise candidate to bridge the differences between the premier, Dung, and leading party member Truong Tan Sang, who was appointed president.<\/p>\n \u201cTrong is considered as pro-Chinese and orthodox. He is a hard-line Marxist ideologue,\u201d<\/em> Vo Tran Nhat, executive secretary of Action for Democracy in Vietnam, a Paris-based group of Vietnamese political exiles, told IPS. \u201cIn spite of the unanimity proclaimed during the Congress, Trong and other members of the Politburo have been criticised widely.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThere were several petitions denouncing him,\u201d<\/em> added Nhat. \u201cLast year in preparation for the congress, 19 eminent military and CPV veterans signed an important petition to the politburo\u2026 accusing four CPV leaders [including Trong] of having favoured corruption, nepotism and the abuse of power.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The latest crackdown on the press comes on the heels of equally repressive measures Hanoi has imposed on Internet activity, which had served as an outlet – through blogs, websites and social networking sites – for Vietnamese citizens to exchange information and criticise government corruption.<\/p>\n Vietnam\u2019s jails not only hold 17 \u2018netizens\u2019 for expressing their views online, but at least two journalists have been imprisoned.<\/p>\n