Reporters obstructed while working: Need for crime of obstructing freedom of speech

That is the opinion of Mr. Ha Duc Nam, Vice President of the Hoa Binh Province Journalists Association, regarding the issue of amending the Press Law and the incidents of obstruction and assault on journalists that have occurred continuously in the past few days.

For the past two days, the press has continuously reported on the case of a reporter from the Hanoi Moi newspaper being beaten until his eyes were black while taking photos of a traffic accident, and a reporter from the Ho Chi Minh City Law newspaper being "hurriedly" grabbed by the armpits and taken away by the ward police and militia while working on preparations for a trial in Long An...

Previously, the assassination of a journalist in Thai Nguyen, the beating of a Giao Thong reporter..., and many other incidents made many people raise the question of how to protect the right to work of reporters and journalists, and more importantly, ensure freedom of the press and freedom of speech.

Two most recent cases of obstruction of press operations

From the above practices, also taking the opportunity to contribute ideas to the ongoing draft amendment of the Press Law, in an exchange with Mr. Ha Duc Nam, Vice President of the Journalists Association of Hoa Binh province, he also shared his views on this issue.

According to Mr. Nam, Article 25 of the 2013 Constitution affirms: “Citizens have the right to freedom of speech, freedom of the press, access to information, assembly, association, and demonstration. The exercise of these rights is regulated by law.” Thus, to ensure this right, the Press Law is only allowed to provide more specific guidance to establish a mechanism for implementing the right to freedom of speech and freedom of the press, but must not restrict or constrain the exercise of this right by citizens and journalists.

Mr. Nam also looked straight at the truth, through consulting the opinions of members of the Hoa Binh Journalists Association, it shows that the fact that reporters are illegally detained while performing their duties but the detainees (commune leaders) are not strictly handled can make the situation of obstruction, assault, and destruction of journalists' working equipment more complicated. According to the research results of RED Com 2011, more than 80% of journalists (out of a total of 384 journalists who responded to the survey) said they had encountered obstruction at low to high levels, from avoiding providing information to threats, revenge...

Workshop to collect comments on the Draft Amendment of the Press Law in Hoa Binh

At the consultations, many members of the Hoa Binh Provincial Journalists Association also said that it is unacceptable for such cases to continue, because since 1989, the Press Law has clearly stated in Article 2: "Ensuring freedom of the press and freedom of speech in the press". Specifically, this law clearly states: "The State creates favorable conditions for citizens to exercise freedom of the press and freedom of speech in the press and for the press to properly promote its role; The press and journalists operate within the framework of the law and are protected by the State; no organization or individual is allowed to restrict or obstruct the activities of the press and journalists. No one is allowed to abuse freedom of the press and freedom of speech in the press to infringe upon the interests of the State, collectives and citizens...".

Mr. Ha Duc Nam, Permanent Vice President of Hoa Binh Provincial Journalists Association

Commenting on the current draft Press Law, Mr. Ha Duc Nam said: "The reason why many opinions are interested in this protection mechanism is because Article 12 of the draft Press Law mentions it again, but there is no commitment or newer mechanism, while the implementation of the old law has gaps that make it difficult for journalists to work and for citizens to exercise their freedom of speech."

According to Mr. Ha Duc Nam, for journalists, the three main mechanisms and solutions are criminal, administrative and civil, all of which are not very effective. Each measure is analyzed and explained by Mr. Nam.

Firstly, under the current criminal sanctions, there is no crime of obstructing journalists from working or obstructing freedom of speech to deal with organizations and individuals who intentionally attack or destroy journalists' means of work. Most similar cases are considered by the prosecution agency under the crimes of "Intentionally causing injury" or "Property destruction", that is, considering the obstruction of journalists from working as normal disputes between citizens, so there are stages of assessing injuries and assessing the value of damaged property, leading to a prolonged process of handling. Meanwhile, few subjects who attack journalists want to cause injury or damage means of work, but mainly want to prevent journalists from collecting and publishing information. Therefore, the vast majority of recent incidents of obstruction and attacks on journalists have either resolved themselves or "sank", allowing new incidents to continue to occur, typically the incidents with reporters from Giao Thong and Dan Tri newspapers in June 2015.

Second, administrative sanctions: Since the 1999 revised Press Law, the Government has issued many Decrees on administrative sanctions for violations in press activities, such as Decree 31, 56, 02 and most recently Decree 159/2013/ND-CP, all of which have sanctions for those who threaten, obstruct, and assault journalists at varying degrees, but over the past 15 years, state management agencies at all levels have only been able to sanction 3 cases of obstructing journalists in 2012 (one in Daklak and two in Can Tho). Meanwhile, the number of journalists and press agencies sanctioned for administrative violations every year is very large, with fines of billions of dong each year.

What about civil measures? Mr. Nam emphasized the current reality that, with the responsibility of protecting members, in recent years, the Journalists Association at all levels has tried very hard to approach cases, speaking up to request the authorities to strictly handle acts of threatening and attacking journalists. However, the implementation of this task has not yet met the requirements, at many times and in many places the role of the Association is still unclear, the voice of the Association is not respected; In addition, when a member's right to work is violated, press agencies lack solidarity in fighting this situation, some agencies still cover up the incident or quietly reconcile, causing other subjects to look down on journalists. In addition, there are rarely cases where press agencies and journalists use the right to sue when violated because the litigation procedures are too cumbersome and complicated, especially the execution stage, making the solution to resolve disputes through the court less appreciated.

Mr. Nam shared: “The above analysis is about journalists working. What about citizens when exercising their freedom of speech and freedom of the press? According to the opinion of members of the Hoa Binh Journalists Association, the press law's regulation that citizens must "ask for permission" when they want to provide information to the press through press conferences is both a formality and creates conditions for state officials to harass and restrict citizens' rights. In reality, state agencies, businesses and citizens can easily "evade" this regulation by conducting intimate meetings without following any procedures or order.”

In particular, a criterion to ensure citizens' freedom of the press is that citizens exercise their right to express, criticize, complain, and denounce through the press and that state agencies are responsible for responding. However, MEC's ​​2013 study showed that only 10% of their petitions, criticisms, complaints, and denunciations sent to the state through the press were responded to fully and on time. Representatives of readers and social organizations in Hoa Binh also provided this data with the request for a mechanism to ensure citizens' freedom of speech in the press.

From the above analysis, Mr. Nam proposes:

Firstly, add to Article 12 and Point d Clause 1 Article 34 of the draft Press Law on the state protection mechanism for the right to practice journalism. Specifically stating: "Acts that prevent journalists from operating in accordance with the law will be subject to administrative sanctions or criminal prosecution for the crime of obstructing journalists and obstructing freedom of speech.

Second, amend Clause 2, Article 40 of the draft Press Law to remove the provision "must be approved by a state agency", meaning that people only need to carry out the procedure of notifying the state agency about the press conference 24 hours in advance;

According to Infonet