[CREATE] Free as in Speech, and Vietnam?

[Hong Phuc Dang]

Dear all,

@Tor: thank you very much for raising the concern. I agree that
political part plays a very important role in any international
conferences.

As a Vietnamese citizen, I have some responses to your thought:

(1) Human rights: As long as we don't talk about Human Rights, we are
safe for sure. I wonder if Libre Graphics meeting has much to do with
politics? There was no topic about Human Rights during LGM 2010 I
believe :-). Besides in order to hold an international event, we often
need to co-organize with a Government office. In our case it will be
the Information Communication Technology (ICT) Department of the host
city.

Co-organize means the Government would like to have their name appear
as a co-organizer without doing any things. The advantage is they can
help us acquire the conference license and visa. We had GNOME.Asia
here with 1400 participants. Other events include Open Courseware
conference , Creative Commons Launch, Software Freedom Day, Barcamp,
and FOSSASIA in November. I think it is definitely possible to have
Libre Graphics Meeting here in Vietnam

(2) Problem of visiting Vietnam: I am not sure if the problem comes
from the people or the process of getting in Vietnam. If it is about
someone's opinion, I totally understand. Some people will avoid to
visit Vietnam due to some political issues. There is nothing that we
can do about it. On the other hand, if it is about the process, we can
help arrange the visa for you as we did several times before.

(3) Government issue: every country operates under its own system. I
understand that we do not have a "perfect" Government here in Vietnam.
However I think it is not so fair to reject a country based on its
Government right? @pierros: thanks for your support.

(4) @Agnez: your friend mentioned about a Foss asia group in Mekong
ICT. They are from our team. We are organizing FOSS.ASIA 2010 in Ho
Chi Minh from Nov 12-14. They are in Chiang Mai at the moment. I got
invited as well but I could not come because I have already used up
this year vacation. Wow, this is such a small world :-).

Again thank you very much for sharing your point of view. I am very
happy that there are more and more people who would like to learn
about our country. Why don't you all visit us to gain  your own
experiences about a "real" Vietnam? I would be so so glad to see you
here.

All the best from Vietnam,

Hong Phuc

2010/6/9 agnez.. <agnez at no-log.org>:
> Hi,
> as I know a specialist on Asian human rights questions I just forwarded her
> your concerns and asked her opinion.
> Here is her answer. Please let me know if you want me to ask for more
> precise matters or help in contacts.
> cheers
> agnez
>
> Hi Agnez,
>
> sure I have some time to answer your question.
> It's a coincidence you ask me this now cuz I am at an ICT camp, with many
> people from Vietnam as well. There is a small organisation called FOSS
> Asia who hold FOSS open days, to encourage people to use free software
> etc. I could bring you in touch wtih them if you want.
> On HR. Well it depends what your reasons are for questioning whether it's
> appropriate to hold such an event in Vietnam. Yes there are many HR
> violations and there is no civil and political freedom in Vietnam. There
> are no independent NGOs, no political parties, lots of surveillance,
> censorship etc. Then again, there are few countries in this part of the
> world I could recommend. Right now, Indonesia may be best in terms of
> freedom of speech, but it's probably just the best of the worst.
> In terms of your own security and the sensitivity of the seminar, it
> should be okay. However, as an American journo who works for Vietnamese
> newspaper just said to me, if you want to avoid too much hassle from
> government (you would have to let them know you hold this seminar) you
> shoudl work together with local media/groups. I assume you guys choose
> Vietnam beacsue there are links with your communities there?
> It's up to your own judgment really I would say. I agree with comment
> below that even holding something in the US can be controversial, seeing
> what they do abroad. Maybe it's good to expose people in Vietnam to your
> projects, whcih don't seem to be political actually.
> Let me know if you need some contacts. I can get them for you this week,
> while I am here.
>
> cheers, T
>
>
> On 06/08/10 12:37, P Papadeas wrote:
>
> On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 12:39 PM, Tor Lillqvist <tml at iki.fi> wrote:
>
>
> I don't want to be a killjoy, but doesn't the Human Rights situation
> in Vietnam leave much to be desired? Do we care? Should we care? (For
> some value of "we".)
>
>
> I took some time to look for any info concerning the situation and I
> found some resources about your concerns.
> Presumably the Wikipedia article is far from cited
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Vietnam) and the only
> major incident was about the "lawyer case". The propaganda against any
> country that does not follow the Western way of political activity has
> gone way to far imho...
>
>
>
> If visiting the US is a problem for political/privacy/whatever reasons
> to some people in the community, would the same people have a problem
> visiting Vietnam?
>
>
> As far as I am concerned,  every country that hosted an LGM has some
> serious implications on the word "freedom" ("peace-keeping ops",
> "software patents", "privacy" etc). Literally every country in the
> world has a political-social situation that in majority rejects our
> views on freedom (this time software and media freedom)
>
>
>
> I know I wouldn't feel comfortable in a conference about one kind of
> freedom (the free software kind) that would (presumably) be sponsored
> by a government that is not that interested in more basic and
> universal kinds of freedom.
>
> But I am not really an expert... and I might be convinced that gaining
> more information about one kind of freedom will eventually help
> improving other freedoms, too, in a country.
>
>
> That could also be the case too... by rejecting countries based on the
> majority-view of the Western Culture we end up *not* being universal
> and blocking the empowerment of people around the world...
>
> Vietnam may have some issues... as every other country in the world
> has more or less.
>
> Friendly,
>
> ~π
>
>
>
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