Recently (17/11) the Reporters without Borders (RWB) published The 15 enemies of the Internet and other countries to watch. among the top (bottom?) 15 was Vietnam of which the article wrote:

The country closely follows the Chinese method of controlling the Internet, but though more ideologically rigid, the regime does not have the money and technology China has to do this. It has Internet police who filter out â??subversiveâ?? content and spy on cybercafés. Cyber-dissidents are thrown in prison and three have been in jail for more than three years for daring to speak out online in favour of democracy.

This article was not recieved happily by the countries on the list and now the Vietnamese news agency has written an article which argues against RWB putting Vietnamn on their list. The Vietnamese article is published by the VietNam News Agency (VNA) which is the official news service of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam. The “VNA is directed by the Government and is authorized to make official statements reflecting the State’s points of view on important national and international issues” (more info about VNA). The article argues against the RWB list and claims that:

The RWB made groundless and ill-intended allegations against these nations for “violating the right to freedom of speech on Internet, censoring liberal sources of news, strictly controlling Internet services.” It accused these nations of “shutting the mouth of dissidents, making troubles, repressing and even imprisoning those who expressed on the Internet opinions running counter to the Government’s policies.”

the article then goes on to describe the development of Internet services in Vietnam. Which is naturally followed by the consequences of such development.

The country’s poor management capacity and infrastructure facilities have been blamed for the Government’s inability to control inflammatory, false and libelious information and pornographic images posted by several local Internet providers. The fact has caused concern among the people. Viet Nam has also failed to introduce effective measures to prevent hostile and reactionary forces and political opportunists at home and abroad from using the Internet and on-line forums to speak ill of achievements gained by the people.

The article then moves on to meeting the actual accusations which places them on the RWB list

Like other countries, Viet Nam discourages and restricts the dissemination of information calling for subversive attempts, and puts firewalls on websites that are not suitable to the morals and fine customs of oriental people in general, and the Vietnamese people in particular.

The main motivations for censorship are the twin threats of subjecting children to pornography and terrorism. Vietnams main defence, in his article, seems to be “everyone else is doing it”:

After the Sept. 11 incident, haunted by terror threats, many Western nations have tightened control over the Internet – a move considered by some citizens to violate individual privacy. The United Nations has been calling for the establishment of a UN Internet Surveillance Agency, which will map out and implement Internet administration policies, covering the most imperative areas of the global network, namely the distribution of domain names, Internet security and crimes, spam, and the protection of individual information on the net.

Naturally the fact that other countries are behaving badly is something which the RWB is aware of even countries that did not make the list (yet) are included in the study as countries which need to be watched. Among the more interesting statements in the article is a sentence at the end “Why did RWB try to politicise a technology that has brought vigorous changes to daily life worldwide?”…Nice try – but when was technology apolitical?