.png)
Police in Vietnam detained have detained a journalist reporting on government corruption in Ho Chi Minh City, reported press watchdog the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Wednesday.
Nguyen Van Khuong, who works for the Troi Tre publication, was detained on Monday and may be held as long as four months, the watchdog said. He is being held in the capital’s police department.
“Journalists who reveal corrupt government practices should be rewarded—not arrested,” said Bob Dietz, the Asia-Pacific director of CPJ, in the report. “Khuong’s detention is another mark against Vietnam’s abysmal and worsening press freedom record.”
The CPJ reported last October that Vietnam stepped up its crackdown on journalists in the first six months of 2011.
At the time, Dietz called Vietnam “among the worst jailers of journalists in the world.” At the same time, Vietnam is also trying to suppress growing dissent and has arrested dozens of political and social activists.
In November, two Vietnamese broadcasters Vu Duc Trung and Le Van Thanh, were sentence to three years and two years respectively in a show trial that found them guilty of “transmitting information illegally into the telecommunications network.” The pair were broadcasting programs about human rights abuses, including the persecution of Falun Gong, into neighboring China.