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HANOI - AN INTERNATIONAL media rights watchdog on Saturday called on Vietnam to free a Thai journalist arrested with a group of pro-democracy activists in the communist country almost two months ago.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said it was 'gravely concerned' about the November 17 arrest and continued detention of Somsak Khunmi, 58, a news assistant with the US- and Japan-based Chan Troi Moi (Radio New Horizon).
In a letter to Vietnam's President Nguyen Minh Triet, the CPJ charged that 'successive Communist Party-led administrations have applied criminal and national security laws to arbitrarily stifle essential democratic freedoms'.
Somsak is the only remaining foreign detainee of a group of journalists and activists, also including US and French citizens, linked to the banned Viet Tan pro-democracy party who were arrested in November in Ho Chi Minh City.
Vietnam has, both officially and through its state-controlled media, accused the California-based Viet Tan (Vietnam Reform) of 'terrorism' but in December freed the foreign activists after protests by Washington and Paris.
The New York-based CPJ said Vietnam had 'failed to lodge any formal, evidence-based charges' against Somsak and had only allowed Thai consular staff one visit so far, while the prisoner's health was reportedly deteriorating.
The CPJ said that, while Vietnam has been lauded for its economic reforms, 'the broader crackdown now under way on freedom of expression in Vietnam greatly undermines your government's reform credentials in the wider world'.
Vietnam's government says it does not punish its political opponents, only people who break the law, including provisions banning anti-state propaganda. -- AFP
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