Hundreds of Catholics promptly showed their angers after the publication of an article on a police newspaper in Hanoi.
Hours after the Capital Security newspaper in Hanoi city had published an article accusing Fr. Peter Nguyen Van Khai, the spokesman of Hanoi Redemptorists of spreading false Church doctrine with the intention to incite riots against the government, hundreds of Catholics protested in front of the newspaper to defend their priest, and to demand the newspaper to withdraw their malicious, false accusation.
Protesting in front of a state-owned newspaper office, especially the one dedicated to the police force is absolutely unprecedented in Vietnam.
Both state media and police have been used to create the culture of fear and submissiveness. Protesting against them is something out of the ordinary if not too risky for the participants' own safety. The protest at the Capital Security newspaper, the voice of Hanoi police force, on Monday morning April 27, therefore, surprises many.
What made the people upset was not only the article on the said newspaper on April 26, 2009 which depicts Fr. Nguyen Van Khai as someone who was trying to take advantage of the politically motivated atmosphere in order to incite his parishioners into sabotaging the national unity and security, but also a picture of him holding a mega phone with a caption specifically describing him as calling for a riot against the government. This has been an outrageous lie, according to many protesters who came to bear witness for the priest's innocence.
The protesters demand to meet the editor and the reporter who wrote the article and post Fr. Khai's picture with ill intention to challenge the accuracy of their report and their ethical conducts. These individuals were nowhere to be found. The newspaper however sent out a representative who listened intensely to the witness who were present at the scene when Fr. Khai holding the mega phone to keep the parishioners in line as they were flooding in to attend a court trial for 8 Thai Ha defendants being held at O Cho Dua on Dec 8, 2008. They insisted that Fr. Khai was helping security police doing their job, not breaking the law as the caption of the picture misleads.
As a result of this protest, the newspaper kept the same article which is riddled with false information, but at least the ill- intentioned picture has been replaced by another one. Plain clothed and uniform police on the other hand were immediately mobilized to the site where they took pictures and videotaped everyone who participated in the protest in a threatening manner.
Although the parishioners could not completely root out the falseness of the newspaper, but they have set a record of people's sheer determination to take the law into their own hands and partially won, in a country where the law is only enforced to protect the right of the ruling party and its members, while ordinary citizens are left to defend themselves and subsequently suffer injustice. Fresh in the Catholics and others' mind was the story of Archbishop Ngo Quang Kiet of Hanoi whose statement at Hanoi People’s Committee on Saturday Sep. 20, 2008 was distorted in order for the state media to attack him for months.
Reporting on the meeting, state media had seized on an isolate phrase in a comment by the archbishop and pulled it out of context in order to condemn him. Here is the full text of his comment: “Hence, we want to repeat here our wish to build up the nation as a great united block. Travelling overseas often, we feel humiliated to be carrying a Vietnamese passport because wherever we go, we are always examined scrupulously [by customs agents]. We are really sad. We desire our country becomes stronger so that we can be like Japanese citizens who can pass through everywhere without being inspected. Koreans already enjoy that. We hope Vietnam becomes a strong, united country, so that we are respected everywhere we go."
His comment was condensed by state-controlled media into a few words: “we feel humiliated to be carrying a Vietnamese passport” in order to condemn him of smearing the nation, and thus causing the fury of people in the capital. Obviously, the quote was left out of context to interpret the speaker's comment in the opposite way.
Years of living as second class citizens has taught these Catholics well on how to survive in a country with laws and regulations designed and implemented to protect only privileged class of party members and their likes, that unless the ordinary people overcome the culture of fear and submissiveness, their lives would never be better or their rights protected under this communist regime. They have no other alternative but to blow their own horn. The protest was an example of how people's determination and their voice has made a difference in setting a terrible record straight, and how to get tyrannical power become lessen over time.
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| Protesting at the Capital Security newspaper |
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| Police videotaped protestors |
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| Police videotaped protestors |
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| Protestors with their banners |
Protesting in front of a state-owned newspaper office, especially the one dedicated to the police force is absolutely unprecedented in Vietnam.
Both state media and police have been used to create the culture of fear and submissiveness. Protesting against them is something out of the ordinary if not too risky for the participants' own safety. The protest at the Capital Security newspaper, the voice of Hanoi police force, on Monday morning April 27, therefore, surprises many.
What made the people upset was not only the article on the said newspaper on April 26, 2009 which depicts Fr. Nguyen Van Khai as someone who was trying to take advantage of the politically motivated atmosphere in order to incite his parishioners into sabotaging the national unity and security, but also a picture of him holding a mega phone with a caption specifically describing him as calling for a riot against the government. This has been an outrageous lie, according to many protesters who came to bear witness for the priest's innocence.
The protesters demand to meet the editor and the reporter who wrote the article and post Fr. Khai's picture with ill intention to challenge the accuracy of their report and their ethical conducts. These individuals were nowhere to be found. The newspaper however sent out a representative who listened intensely to the witness who were present at the scene when Fr. Khai holding the mega phone to keep the parishioners in line as they were flooding in to attend a court trial for 8 Thai Ha defendants being held at O Cho Dua on Dec 8, 2008. They insisted that Fr. Khai was helping security police doing their job, not breaking the law as the caption of the picture misleads.
As a result of this protest, the newspaper kept the same article which is riddled with false information, but at least the ill- intentioned picture has been replaced by another one. Plain clothed and uniform police on the other hand were immediately mobilized to the site where they took pictures and videotaped everyone who participated in the protest in a threatening manner.
Although the parishioners could not completely root out the falseness of the newspaper, but they have set a record of people's sheer determination to take the law into their own hands and partially won, in a country where the law is only enforced to protect the right of the ruling party and its members, while ordinary citizens are left to defend themselves and subsequently suffer injustice. Fresh in the Catholics and others' mind was the story of Archbishop Ngo Quang Kiet of Hanoi whose statement at Hanoi People’s Committee on Saturday Sep. 20, 2008 was distorted in order for the state media to attack him for months.
Reporting on the meeting, state media had seized on an isolate phrase in a comment by the archbishop and pulled it out of context in order to condemn him. Here is the full text of his comment: “Hence, we want to repeat here our wish to build up the nation as a great united block. Travelling overseas often, we feel humiliated to be carrying a Vietnamese passport because wherever we go, we are always examined scrupulously [by customs agents]. We are really sad. We desire our country becomes stronger so that we can be like Japanese citizens who can pass through everywhere without being inspected. Koreans already enjoy that. We hope Vietnam becomes a strong, united country, so that we are respected everywhere we go."
His comment was condensed by state-controlled media into a few words: “we feel humiliated to be carrying a Vietnamese passport” in order to condemn him of smearing the nation, and thus causing the fury of people in the capital. Obviously, the quote was left out of context to interpret the speaker's comment in the opposite way.
Years of living as second class citizens has taught these Catholics well on how to survive in a country with laws and regulations designed and implemented to protect only privileged class of party members and their likes, that unless the ordinary people overcome the culture of fear and submissiveness, their lives would never be better or their rights protected under this communist regime. They have no other alternative but to blow their own horn. The protest was an example of how people's determination and their voice has made a difference in setting a terrible record straight, and how to get tyrannical power become lessen over time.