Posted on 27 February 2013 – 03:23pm
Last updated on 27 February 2013 – 04:18pm
HANOI (Feb 27, 2013): A Vietnamese journalist said Wednesday he had been fired from his state-run newspaper after criticising the head of the ruling Communist Party in a personal blog.
Nguyen Dac Kien was sacked from the Family and Society newspaper less than 24 hours after he published an essay on his blog – which quickly went viral – criticising a speech by the party’s general secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.
The newspaper falls under the remit of the Ministry of Health.
Vietnam, a one-party state that forbids political debate, routinely jails or places under house arrest activists and bloggers for publicly expressing dissent and challenging the communist party’s rule.
“I am not surprised. After what I wrote (my removal from the paper) was easy to predict,” Kien, who had worked at the newspaper since 2008, told AFP by telephone.
Read more: http://www.thesundaily.my/news/624071
