Speaking on behalf of its government, the State News Agency of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam has accused AsiaNews - a Catholic News Agency based in Italy - of distortion, false accusation, and agitation against Vietnam authorities. The agency, however, has been warmly praised by Vietnamese Catholics for its zealous efforts to defend the Church in Vietnam
"Recently a number of websites, the AsiaNews Catholic News Agency among them, have published news with many misleading details and aggravating comments in order to falsely accuse local authorities of Dong Chiem, a village in An Phu Commune, My Duc County, Hanoi after the dismantling of a crucifix which had been illegally constructed on top of Mount Che, ” the State News Agency VNA said in its article titled “No crackdown on Dong Chiem Parishioners” published on Friday Jan. 15, and re-published on most state-run media outlets the next day.
Parishioners and other locals call it “Nui Tho” when referring to the mount whose peak the destroyed crucifix once stood on. State media, however, use the word “Nui Che - Mount Che” purposely to avoid the commonly used name “Nui Tho”, literally translated as “Mount of Worshiping”, a give-away cue of confirmation on the Catholic ownership of the mount.
“The information have been echoed by Vatican Radio Stations (Radio Vaticana) and The Holy See’s Radio Maria Radio Station, causing misunderstanding to the international public opinion,” it added.
Showing off its power of the official mouthpiece of Vietnam government, the news outlet stated that: “The Vietnamese News Agency has been granted the permission to make this statement in order to totally reject the said false information which bears ill wills of sabotaging the grand national unity bloc; and to affirm that there is no such thing as government's oppression on Dong Chiem Parishioners."
Vietnam has denied the police attack at Dong Chiem despite pictures of the bloody clash showing several people injured, and a strong protest statement of Hanoi Archdiocese. “Blowing up the crucifix in the cemetery of Dong Chiem Parish with explosives is the most severe form of sacrilege. It's insults the Catholic faith,” said Fr. John Le Trong Cung, Vice Chancellor of the Hanoi Archbishopric in a statement on Jan 8.
As of Saturday Jan 16, reports coming out from Dong Chiem mentioned that vandalism of the crosses on the individual tombstones at the parish cemetery by government officials has just resumed. The situation is a timed bomb waiting to explode any time.
In a prompt response to the accusation of the State news agency, Fr. Van Chi Chu, spokesperson of The Federation of Vietnamese Catholic Mass Media, which includes several religious publications based outside Vietnam, praised efforts that AsiaNews "had been zealously made to defend the Church in Vietnam.”
“I would like to thank AsiaNews for raising awareness among Churches of the suffering of Catholics in Vietnam. Without it, apart from day to day suffering under a dictatorial regime, they would have also suffered the indifference of the world,” he added.
“Thanks a million for helping Catholics in Vietnam carry their cross,” he concluded.
“AsiaNews has become the first non-Vietnamese critic being condemned by Vietnam government. The unfavourable reaction Vietnam government has just expressed toward AsiaNews shows how effective the site is on international public opinion about Vietnam,” added Fr. John Nghi Tran, director of California based VietCatholic News Agency.
“On Monday [Jan. 11], they physically attacked Nguyen Huu Vinh [a Catholic freelance journalist]. On Friday, they verbally attacked AsiaNews. Both of them have become the victims of this regime for being exposing the truth about Vietnamese government's abuse on human and religious rights against people of Christian faith,” he continued, raising concern on how the regime is prepared for a hostile and potentially dangerous approach on any opposing voice in the near future.
Fr. Joseph Nguyen from Hanoi disclosed: “A large number of bishops, priests, religious - who have studied in Rome - read AsiaNews daily as they can read directly in Italian articles updated in timely fashion. Young Vietnamese Catholics who can read English are also among AsiaNews’ frequent readers.”
According to the priest, Catholic News Sites that have given prominent coverage to a Vietnamese government campaign against the Catholic Church, with AsiaNews being one of the most active outlets, have been blocked by government censors. However, Vietnamese readers can use free anonymous proxy sites to bypass firewall and Internet filter.
At first, most of the site blocked to users in Vietnam were written in Vietnamese and covered events in that country. Recently, however, popular Catholic sites written in English which draw a high numbers of readers in Vietnam namely AsiaNews, Catholic World News, Catholic News Agency, and Independent Catholic News have all been added to the list of blocked sites, along with human-rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch, Writers Without Borders, and Amnesty International.
Vietnam strictly regulates Internet access for its citizens, using both legal and technical means. The collaborative project OpenNet Initiative classifies Vietnam's level of online political censorship to be "pervasive" while Reporters without Borders considers Vietnam one of 15 "internet enemies."
The government of Vietnam claims to safeguard the country against obscene or sexually explicit content to justify its blocking efforts, but in reality most of the filtered sites contain politically or religiously sensitive materials that are seen to undermine the Communist Party's hold on power; while porn sites can be accessed readily. As a matter of fact, most Vietnamese electronic and paper newspapers are being criticized for containing violent and sexually explicit materials according to the latest admission of Pham Duc Hai, Editor of Tuoi Tre (Youth) online magazine.
Amnesty International has reported many instances of Internet activists being arrested for their online activities in Vietnam. OpenNet research found that blocking is concentrated on web sites with contents about overseas political opposition, overseas and independent media, human rights, and religious topics.
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Parishioners and other locals call it “Nui Tho” when referring to the mount whose peak the destroyed crucifix once stood on. State media, however, use the word “Nui Che - Mount Che” purposely to avoid the commonly used name “Nui Tho”, literally translated as “Mount of Worshiping”, a give-away cue of confirmation on the Catholic ownership of the mount.
“The information have been echoed by Vatican Radio Stations (Radio Vaticana) and The Holy See’s Radio Maria Radio Station, causing misunderstanding to the international public opinion,” it added.
Showing off its power of the official mouthpiece of Vietnam government, the news outlet stated that: “The Vietnamese News Agency has been granted the permission to make this statement in order to totally reject the said false information which bears ill wills of sabotaging the grand national unity bloc; and to affirm that there is no such thing as government's oppression on Dong Chiem Parishioners."
Vietnam has denied the police attack at Dong Chiem despite pictures of the bloody clash showing several people injured, and a strong protest statement of Hanoi Archdiocese. “Blowing up the crucifix in the cemetery of Dong Chiem Parish with explosives is the most severe form of sacrilege. It's insults the Catholic faith,” said Fr. John Le Trong Cung, Vice Chancellor of the Hanoi Archbishopric in a statement on Jan 8.
As of Saturday Jan 16, reports coming out from Dong Chiem mentioned that vandalism of the crosses on the individual tombstones at the parish cemetery by government officials has just resumed. The situation is a timed bomb waiting to explode any time.
In a prompt response to the accusation of the State news agency, Fr. Van Chi Chu, spokesperson of The Federation of Vietnamese Catholic Mass Media, which includes several religious publications based outside Vietnam, praised efforts that AsiaNews "had been zealously made to defend the Church in Vietnam.”
“I would like to thank AsiaNews for raising awareness among Churches of the suffering of Catholics in Vietnam. Without it, apart from day to day suffering under a dictatorial regime, they would have also suffered the indifference of the world,” he added.
“Thanks a million for helping Catholics in Vietnam carry their cross,” he concluded.
“AsiaNews has become the first non-Vietnamese critic being condemned by Vietnam government. The unfavourable reaction Vietnam government has just expressed toward AsiaNews shows how effective the site is on international public opinion about Vietnam,” added Fr. John Nghi Tran, director of California based VietCatholic News Agency.
“On Monday [Jan. 11], they physically attacked Nguyen Huu Vinh [a Catholic freelance journalist]. On Friday, they verbally attacked AsiaNews. Both of them have become the victims of this regime for being exposing the truth about Vietnamese government's abuse on human and religious rights against people of Christian faith,” he continued, raising concern on how the regime is prepared for a hostile and potentially dangerous approach on any opposing voice in the near future.
Fr. Joseph Nguyen from Hanoi disclosed: “A large number of bishops, priests, religious - who have studied in Rome - read AsiaNews daily as they can read directly in Italian articles updated in timely fashion. Young Vietnamese Catholics who can read English are also among AsiaNews’ frequent readers.”
According to the priest, Catholic News Sites that have given prominent coverage to a Vietnamese government campaign against the Catholic Church, with AsiaNews being one of the most active outlets, have been blocked by government censors. However, Vietnamese readers can use free anonymous proxy sites to bypass firewall and Internet filter.
At first, most of the site blocked to users in Vietnam were written in Vietnamese and covered events in that country. Recently, however, popular Catholic sites written in English which draw a high numbers of readers in Vietnam namely AsiaNews, Catholic World News, Catholic News Agency, and Independent Catholic News have all been added to the list of blocked sites, along with human-rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch, Writers Without Borders, and Amnesty International.
Vietnam strictly regulates Internet access for its citizens, using both legal and technical means. The collaborative project OpenNet Initiative classifies Vietnam's level of online political censorship to be "pervasive" while Reporters without Borders considers Vietnam one of 15 "internet enemies."
The government of Vietnam claims to safeguard the country against obscene or sexually explicit content to justify its blocking efforts, but in reality most of the filtered sites contain politically or religiously sensitive materials that are seen to undermine the Communist Party's hold on power; while porn sites can be accessed readily. As a matter of fact, most Vietnamese electronic and paper newspapers are being criticized for containing violent and sexually explicit materials according to the latest admission of Pham Duc Hai, Editor of Tuoi Tre (Youth) online magazine.
Amnesty International has reported many instances of Internet activists being arrested for their online activities in Vietnam. OpenNet research found that blocking is concentrated on web sites with contents about overseas political opposition, overseas and independent media, human rights, and religious topics.