Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Meanwhile, in the land of real reporters...

There are still a few countries in this world that boast of real reporters doing honest to God reporting in the service of truth and justice. In Vietnam, for instance, two reporters have been convicted and one sentenced to prison for exposing government corruption.

BANGKOK, Oct. 15 -- A court in Vietnam on Wednesday sentenced a journalist to two years in prison after he exposed a scandal involving Transportation Ministry officials siphoning off aid money, in part to bet on European soccer matches.

Nguyen Viet Chien, who worked for the Thanh Nien daily newspaper, was convicted of "abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the state." One of his sources, Lt. Col. Dinh Van Huynh, 50, was given a one-year sentence for "deliberately revealing state secrets."

Chien was unrepentant during the trial.

"With my journalist conscience, I can say I never have any other purpose in mind when writing my reports but exposing wrongdoing and fighting corruption," he told the court.

No comments: