Vietnam leader’s UK visit overshadowed by ‘interrogation’ of BBC journalist
The BBC said the BBC correspondent was banned from leaving Vietnam and subjected to days of interrogation while the country’s top leader arrived in the UK on an official visit.
The publisher alleges that authorities prevented the journalist, a Vietnamese citizen living and working in Thailand, from leaving the country, confiscated his passport and subjected him to interrogation.
The British government is being pressured by friends of the journalist to put pressure on To Lam, the general secretary of the Vietnamese Communist Party, who is scheduled to meet with prime minister Sir Keir Starmer to secure his release.
Friends hope his case will be brought up during the British prime minister’s meeting with the Vietnamese leader.
The journalist, who worked for the BBC’s Vietnam Service, returned to his country in August to renew his passport. “One of our journalists has been unable to leave Vietnam for several months because authorities confiscated his identity card and renewed passport,” the BBC said in a statement on Tuesday.
Local police allegedly retained his reissued passport and interrogated him for five days for his work. “We are deeply concerned about the health condition of our journalist and demand that the authorities allow them to leave immediately and provide them with renewed passports so they can return to work.”
The journalist, who wished to remain anonymous, was “shaken” by the harsh questioning and was pressured to admit 18 articles he had published. Times he reported, quoting his friends.
During Mr. Lam’s visit, both countries are expected to upgrade their relations to a strategic comprehensive partnership, according to British officials. But Mr. Lam’s visit appears to have been overshadowed by another striking example of restrictions on press freedom in Vietnam.
“When you engage in this level of interrogation and pick out specific articles that they’re forcing him to accept, I think they’re getting ready to arrest,” said Phil Robertson, a human rights activist in Bangkok.
“They may not be arresting him now because they do not want to disrupt the visit of the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam to meet Keir Starmer and sign this special relationship between the two countries,” he said. Times.
A Foreign Office spokesman told the BBC that the UK’s “position and record of defending media freedom is clear”.
“We remain concerned about reported harassment of NGOs, journalists, rights defenders and communities in Vietnam and continue to raise these concerns directly with our Vietnamese counterpart,” the spokesman said.
Vietnam is one of the countries most hostile to independent journalism, and journalists are routinely jailed or censored. The Vietnamese government under Mr. Lam’s leadership has intensified its crackdown on dissent, arresting activists, journalists, lawyers and critics.
In May, Vietnam banned the print edition of the book. EconomistThe cover of the magazine featured To Lam with stars drawn on her eyes.
Describing Vietnam as “one of the world’s largest prisons for journalists,” Reporters Without Borders ranked the South Asian country 173rd in its press freedom index covering 180 countries.
