When journalists go to jail

Some Vietnamese journalists have asked my opinion about the arrest and detention of two of their own.

Nguyen Viet Chien, 56, a reporter for Thanh Nien, and Nguyen Van Hai, 33, reporter for Tuoi Tre, were jailed last month, according to the Vietnam Journalism site. VietNamNet reported that the two will be in “temporary detention for four months”; the charge is “abuse of power.”

The reasons are opaque to me in part because the reporting — about a political corruption case called PMU 18 — took place in 2006, and journalists here have said that most newspapers published a lot of stories about it. More than U.S. $1 million was apparently involved, as well as gambling, foreign aid, and high-up officials. Journalists said the two newspapers (Thanh Nien and Tuoi Tre) did write a lot on the case, and possibly they were the most aggressive in pursuing the story, but it remains unclear exactly why Chien and Hai would be singled out.

Time magazine described the story this way:

A scandal started brewing in early 2006 with the arrest of Bui Tien Dung, the former director of PMU18, a state road and bridge building division with a $2 billion annual budget that is largely funded by the World Bank and Japan. Dung and others were accused of embezzling millions of dollars, most of which was gambled away on European football matches, and spent on prostitutes and luxury cars, according to government investigators. (May 16, 2008)

I am reminded of an equally recent situation in Malaysia — renowned Malaysian blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin (a k a RPK) was jailed in May for raising questions about an ongoing court case concerning the 2006 murder of a woman known as Altantuya. Although Raja Petra has been released on bail, he is scheduled to be tried in October on a sedition charge.

When I discussed Raja Petra with Malaysians, it was clear to me that they are proud of him. One man called RPK “courageous” and said Malaysia needs more journalists like him. Why? Because he writes what the newspaper journalists in Malaysia are afraid to write.

Officially, Raja Petra is not a journalist — but Chien and Hai are. Does it make a difference when the government puts you in jail for what you have written?

The blogs in Vietnam have apparently kept the public informed about the journalists’ situation — although many of the related Yahoo 360 blog posts from May 2008 (written in Vietnamese) have been deleted.

Can the government subdue journalists and keep them quiet and docile? Yes, it’s possible. But can the government silence everyone — once the public has access to fast, cheap Internet services?

It’s going to get a lot harder.